Feast of Souls

  She rose from the ground unsteadily, brushing dried pine needles from her mourning gown. She wondered if she should call for her maidservant to pick the mess out of her hair as well. But Merian was half mad with worry about her these days, so much so that Gwynofar almost felt guilty letting her see her in this state. Better to brush the dirt and debris out herself, before the woman saw her.

  She had barely drawn a lock of golden hair forward over her shoulder and begun to pick at it when suddenly she heard a twig snap behind her. Her heart skipped a beat. The sound came from a far corner of the courtyard, where the blue pines were crowded so closely together that the sunlight hardly reached the ground; she could not see through the tangled branches to make out the source of the noise. Who would come to this place without announcing himself, and why?

  There was no good answer to that question.

  Heart pounding, she looked about herself for something which she could use for self-defense, and finally picked up a fallen branch that lay nearby. Her hand was shaking as she hefted it, knowing even as she did so that the effort was futile. It had been too many years since she and Rhys had sported in the meadows as children, waging mock battles with weapons fashioned out of broom handles as they pretended to be Guardians routing out the last defenders of some demonic stronghold. But at least she did not look quite as helpless holding it; perhaps that would be worth something.

  Then a figure stepped out from the shadows, and a lean, pale hand pushed back the edge of the woolen hood it was wearing, that she might see its face.

  Her legs suddenly grew weak beneath her. The makeshift weapon dropped from her fingers.

  “Andovan?” she whispered in disbelief.

  For a moment she thought it might be a ghost that stood before her, and not a real man at all. The visitor was pale and drawn, his cheeks hollow, his frame far thinner than Andovan’s had ever been. So she moved forward slowly, and raised a hand up to touch his cheek. His skin was dry and taut beneath her fingertips, but it was real. He was real.

  “Andovan . . .” She could say no more; a mixture of joy and pain too terrible to bear choked off all words. He said nothing, simply took her in his arms and held her tightly. Despite the terrible wasting disease that had sapped his strength his embrace was strong and sure, and it gave comfort to her, body and soul.

  Gwynofar wept. From joy, from fear, from sheer emotional exhaustion. She wept for Andovan’s death, for the misery of her mourning, and for everything which had followed that loss. She wept for all the nights she had prayed to her gods and seemingly gone unanswered. For all the indignities Kostas had forced her to endure, and the silence with which she had borne them. For the fact that she was High Queen, and being such, might not weep freely, except in such company as this.

  At last, emptied of misery, she drew back from him. She looked away for a moment as she wiped her eyes dry, allowing him a moment of privacy to do the same if he required it. Men were not so public about their tears as women were. Then, finally she looked into his eyes—blue, so very blue, like the color of the rivers in the far north when the ice cracked in springtime—and whispered in wonder, “You are not dead.”

  “No.” His smile was so tender it nearly broke her heart. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Does Danton know?”

  His mouth tightened. “Not yet.”

  “Then how . . . how is it you are here? Surely the guards must have seen you . . .”

  “I used the same tunnels I did when I was a boy. Remember? You and Father would search the palace for me, but I knew all the ancient ways: servants’ passages, forgotten spaces between the walls, tunnels carved out in the days when siege threatened. . . .” His fleeting smile reminded her of those days, and of the young prince who would rather play in the woods than attend to his lessons. How her heart ached to be reminded of that time!

  “Everything is still the same as it was. Though not quite as spacious as I remembered it.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “No one has seen me here save you.”

  “You faked your death.” Her voice caught in her throat; she had to fight to get the words out. “Why, Andovan? Why do such a thing?”

  A shadow passed briefly across his face. For a moment he turned away from her, as if he could not meet her eyes while he spoke. “Because I could not bear to die in bed,” he said at last. “Because if there was a cause for my condition I wanted to seek it out, and if I could not find it . . . then it would be better to die on the road, I thought, fighting my fate, than swaddled in blankets like a helpless infant.”

  She shut her eyes and tried to make sense of it all. “Then the note you left—”

  “That was truly mine, yes. And I meant every word.”

  “But the body . . .”

  “Not mine, obviously. Though it had that seeming.”

  “But Ramirus said that it was yours. He said he used sorcery to be sure of it. Did he know the truth as well?”

  “No.” A pained expression passed across his face. “He knew nothing of it.”

  “He didn’t help you do this?”

  “How could I ask that of him? His first duty was to my father, not to me. He would not have lied to Danton for my sake.”

  “So then who—?” Her eyes grew wide as understanding came. All the Magisters were here, back then. Enough power to fake a thousand deaths.

  “Which one of them?” she whispered.

  For the first time, he seemed to hesitate.

  “Tell me, Andovan.”

  “Colivar,” he said. “It was Colivar.”

  She breathed in sharply. “The Anshasan?”

  He cut short her protest with a wave of his hand. “I know what you’re going to say—that he serves an enemy of our House—but in this case our goals were identical. The Magisters thought that someone had cursed me, and they were trying to find out who. Colivar said that I had the power within myself to seek her out, if only I had spells to help me focus. No one else could do what I could do. But I knew Father would never let me go on such a quest, and Ramirus would never help, so I did . . . what I did.”

  She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to absorb it all. Colivar. Of course. Now that she understood that piece of the puzzle, all the rest fell into place. How easy it would have been for the foreign Magister to read her son like a book, to know exactly what words would move him to greater and greater frustration . . . until at last he was so desperate to act that he would follow his heart and not his head, embracing the suggestions of his father’s enemy without ever questioning where they might lead.

  Oh, my son, my foolish, beloved son . . . you were strong and true in your heart and but you never had a head for politics, and now look at what it has cost us.

  Of course Ramirus would never have helped Andovan flee the palace, much less fake his own death. Ramirus would have understood that the loss of Danton’s son would throw the entire household into turmoil. Perhaps he might even have predicted the events that would come of it: Danton’s rage. His own banishment. Kostas moving in like a vulture to feed upon the soft, tender flesh of a kingdom in mourning. Every horror that had come to this kingdom of late had been set in motion by Andovan’s death . . . which Colivar had apparently orchestrated. Even by Magister standards, it was a masterwork.

  That man is a viper, and through you he has poisoned the very heart of Danton’s kingdom.

  It took effort not to let all that show in her face. She did not want her son to see anything in her expression other than love and acceptance. It would accomplish nothing to have him understand the magnitude of his error, save to make him feel greater remorse than any human soul could bear. No, this must be a secret that she kept locked up in her heart, where no other person could share it.

  I will have vengeance for this, Colivar. Someday, somehow, I swear by the Wrath, you will pay for what you did to us.

  “Mother.” He said it softly, gentling her from her reverie. “I risked Father’s wrath to return for a reason.”

  Wiping new
moisture from her eyes, she looked up at him. Something in his expression made a cold shiver run up her spine. “What is it?”

  “The demons of the north. The ones they call Souleaters.” His expression darkened. “They are back.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “Impossible. The Wrath still stands. The Guardians would have told us if it had fallen—”

  “They have been seen in the human lands. The young ones, at least. And there are witnesses in Corialanus who testify to having seen one of the adults, or something very much like it, attending upon a field of slaughter.”

  She shuddered. “Who saw them? Colivar?”

  “No. Others.”

  “But he is the one that told you about them.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “He spoke the truth, Mother. I have a witch traveling with me, I asked her to make sure of his words.” He paused. “I am not such a fool as to take that kind of report at face value, not when so much is at stake.”

  No, she thought bitterly. Not this time, at least.

  Souleaters. The legends all said they would return someday, for a battle that could bring about the end of the Second Age of Kings. Those same legends promised that ancient magics in the Protectors’ bloodlines would be awakened when it was needed. Was that the source of her dreams? Some ancient magic stirring now, responding to this threat, preparing her and her children for roles they were destined to play? If so, shouldn’t that same magic make her feel more confident about what was happening, shouldn’t it fill her with a sense of purpose, or, of . . . well, destiny? It didn’t. She just felt frightened.

  “I have had strange dreams of flying beasts,” she whispered. “I wondered at their source. Perhaps the gods are showing us what is to come.”

  “There is more,” he warned her.

  She looked up at him, bracing herself.

  “Colivar says that the Magisters have determined that the Souleaters are somehow allied with men. Men who are feeding them human souls. Serving their purpose. Paving the way for their return.”

  She opened her mouth and was about to protest that surely no men would do such a foolish thing—

  When the truth hit her, with stunning force.

  Her mouth opened and closed silently several times. No sound would come out.

  Oh, my gods. . . .

  She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling, as she remembered the ancient prophecies she’d been taught as a child. The Protectors shall know them when they return. The gods had promised her family that, when they set them apart from all other men. That’s what the foul essence in the palace was. That cold, clammy feeling of wrongness that accompanied Kostas like a rancid wind everywhere he went. The gods had been trying to tell her the truth about him. She hadn’t known how to interpret their message.

  What a fool I have been!

  Her legs were suddenly weak beneath her. She would have fallen had not Andovan reached out and grabbed her; he helped her to the nearest bench, and did not let go of her arm until she was safely seated, her hands grasping its beveled edge for stability.

  “Kostas . . .” she whispered.

  That was why the new Magister had asked about her lineage. That was why he had wanted to hear the ancient legends. That was why he had done everything possible to separate her from her husband. If the tales of the ancient war were true, if the gods had indeed imbued the blood of the Protectors with secret magics meant to hold the monsters at bay—he wanted her to have no allies when they surfaced, no credibility. No hope.

  “But why would a human being serve them?” she whispered. “We are food to them, nothing more.”

  “Much can change in a thousand years.” Andovan’s expression was grim. “We sent them north to die. No man has seen them since. Who knows what they may have become in that time?”

  “But there is no life up there, no sustenance for them . . . how can they have survived?”

  “I don’t know the answers to that, Mother. I only bring you what I have been told.” He hesitated. “The only other possibility is that Danton himself is assisting them—”

  “No,” she said sharply. “He would never do that.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Of that? Yes. Yes, I am.” Her husband might be acting erratically these days, but he was not so mad as to embrace the Souleaters’ cause.

  Which meant that it had to be Kostas.

  Andovan knelt down before her. It was an act that mirrored Rurick’s earlier plea to her, which had gone so terribly wrong. She could not meet his eyes because of it.

  “What do you want of me?” she said. “That I kill Kostas? That I help set up someone else to do so?” She wrung her hands in her lap as she spoke. “It’s not like I haven’t thought of it, Andovan. He is twisting my husband’s soul against me; there is nothing I would not do to remove him from my life. But it is as he said, he knows every move even as I plan it. One night I dreamed of poisoning him—a mere dream!—and the next night I found a vial of poison in my room, by the bed. He was daring me to try!” Shaking, she drew in a breath. “If he is even within my dreams, watching my every thought, how can I move against him? The moment I begin to plan his murder, he will know every detail. You cannot kill a Magister like that.”

  “Then Father must be convinced to sever their contract. It is the only way.”

  She shut her eyes. A shudder ran through her body. “Please tell me you are not going to ask me to talk him into that. Please.”

  He said nothing.

  “Even in the old days that would have stressed our relationship to the breaking point. Now . . . I dare not think what he would do if I told him he should send his new Magister Royal away. He will see me as an enemy of his ambition—”

  “You are the only one who can even try,” he said quietly. “Ramirus is gone now. I cannot go to him, you know that.”

  “No,” she whispered. “You cannot.” Maybe in the old days they could have found a way to tell Danton that his son was alive, but this new king, never more than a hair’s breadth away from a killing rage, would not welcome the news. He would hang Andovan’s head from the front gate as a warning to any other member of his family that thought they might play him for a fool, and maybe Gwynofar’s as well, for encouraging him. And Kostas would laugh at both of them as he plotted his next atrocity.

  Danton loved me once, she told herself. Surely some part of him loves me still. If I can reach out to that part, perhaps he will listen to me.

  “If it is the only thing that can be done, if there truly is no other way . . .” She drew in a deep breath, trembling. “I will speak to him. But whether he will listen to me at all is in the hands of the gods. And they have not been obliging of late.”

  “The fate of one man is a small thing in their eyes,” Andovan told her. “But surely the fate of the whole world is a different matter. If the Magisters are right, if their reports are true, that is what we are talking about.” He took her hands in his own and squeezed them, tightly. “No one but you can do this, Mother.”

  Rurick said the same words to me, once. That meeting is what brought me to Kostas’ attention, so that now he watches my every move. Where will this one lead?

  “I will talk to him,” she promised.

  She did not think she would be able to convince Danton to send Kostas away, but if she could even seed doubts in his mind about the man’s counsel, that might be enough. The Magister’s lies would then lose some power over him, and he might come to his senses. Perhaps in time Danton could even be told the truth about Andovan without flying into a homicidal rage. And then her son could come home again. And they could try to rebuild the lives that Colivar had shattered, and set the High Kingdom on a stable course once more.

  Dreams, she thought, these are only dreams. But dreams were all she had right now, so she savored them.

  As for the Souleaters . . . that possibility was too terrible to contemplate. But if Andovan was right—if the Magisters were right—then there was a greater threat facing
them than any living man could remember. And the Protectors like herself would be front and center in dealing with it.

  One thing at a time, she told herself. And she embraced her beloved son anew, and held him tightly, trying to forget for one single moment just how great the odds against all of them were.

  Chapter 40

  ALONE IN her chamber, Siderea Aminestas ran finely manicured fingers along the edges of her secret strongbox. The cover was already unlocked. The Magister’s tokens lay inside. It would take little effort to pull them out, and little witchery to use them for what she intended. The cost would be so small that she would hardly notice it. Five minutes of life, perhaps. Maybe less.

  Sometimes the price must be paid, she told herself.

  Still she hesitated. In the old days she could have been certain that sooner or later a Magister would show up to visit, who could then be convinced to tell her what she needed to know. These days she was not so sure of that. Ever since she had received the visitor from Corialanus things had been different, somehow. Colivar had given her a report of the slaughter up north, as he’d promised to, but she’d sensed he was leaving out important details. Fadir suddenly had business too pressing to allow him to stay overnight, thus robbing her of the venue in which she was most likely to get a Magister to divulge his secrets. Since then, she’d had no visitors of that ilk at all. Was it just coincidence? Or was there something going on that required all their attention?

  If so, she needed to know what it was. They were not the only ones directing the fate of the human kingdoms. She might not be their equal in sorcery, but few men were her equal in politics. She would not allow anyone to keep her in the dark—and that included Magisters.

  Opening the lid of the chest, she ran her fingertips lightly over the folded bits of paper within it. Such simple tokens. So very powerful. All it would take was a moment of true witchery to allow her to read their owners like a book. She was willing to bet not a single one had put up safeguards against such an effort. Why should they? She had never taken advantage of their offerings before. They would probably not know it if she did so now.