Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 10

  It was a slight, and everyone knew it. Lady Astor dropped her gaze to her tea, but the Marchioness’s eyes bored into Alyneri like blue coals ablaze with spite.

  “I do not think so, Lady Wynne,” Alyneri replied, wishing she had the same sort of ill-disposed humor that she, too, might devise comments as artfully hurtful as the Marchioness. “I was betrothed to one prince already, after all. Whoever could wish for such a thing twice?”

  “But was not Ean val Lorian your childhood sweetheart?” Ianthe pressed. “I would think you excited to welcome him home now that you are free of your other…obligations.”

  “That is a difference between us, Lady Wynne,” Alyneri returned evenly, though it took a great force of will not to leap at the shrewish woman and stab out her eyes with a teaspoon. She turned back to Lady Astor. “If you will allow me to do nothing else to help you, Lady Astor, I will have more tea sent to your apartments. It will assist with the pain in your knees, at least.”

  “That would be most kind of you, Duchess,” Lady Astor murmured without looking at her.

  “Can you really cure old age, your Grace?” This came from the young Lisandre val Mallonwey, who could not herself be older than Tanis. Alyneri knew her to be a gentle soul among these serpents, and feared she would not remain long untainted by their poisoned tongues. She wondered why Lisandre wasn’t with her elder sister Katerine, who was being famously courted by the prince’s blood-brother and knew better than to break her fast with this crowd.

  “No, Lisandre,” Alyneri answered with a smile. “A Healer’s craft limits her to what the body itself can accomplish. I merely help to speed the process.”

  “But there are those who do not age, are there not, Duchess?” This from the Contessa di Remy, a citizen of the Agasi Empire whose husband served as aide to the Agasi Ambassador to Dannym.

  Alyneri turned to the Contessa. “There is something known as the Pattern of Life, which is said to slow the aging process, but I am told that its working is quite painful and not to be undertaken by the faint of heart.”

  “Only the young wish for immortality,” Lady Astor grumbled. “The old know better.”

  “The old don’t like being old, so they hope to die quickly and get it over with,” Ianthe observed. “I would work the Pattern of Life and live forever.”

  “That’s because you are young and stupid, Ianthe,” Lady Astor snapped, “and know no better.”

  “It seems so complicated,” Lisandre said with a sigh.

  “Surely you understate your talents, Alyneri,” Ianthe said then, boldly calling her by name though they were neither peers nor friends, and Alyneri clearly outranked her as a duchess of the court. “I myself have seen Veneisean Healers do miraculous things.”

  “Oh, pray tell me, Marchioness,” Lisandre said happily. “I do so enjoy hearing of miracles.”

  Ianthe smoothed her swirling coiffure of golden curls, not a hair of which was out of place, and answered Lisandre as her pale blue eyes regarded Alyneri with barely veiled malignity, “My cousin, the famed Healer Sandrine du Préc, while traveling the jungles of Bemoth, once healed a man of the bite of the Valdère viper. The doomed man was perilously close to death when he arrived at my cousin’s tent, but she laid hands upon him and commanded his soul back from the clutches of Shadow. He walked away, wholly healed.”

  “Your cousin must surely be Maker-blessed to work such miracles,” Lisandre murmured, awestruck.

  Alyneri was unimpressed. “I have heard of your cousin,” she said. “She is an ingenious wielder.”

  Ianthe sucked in her breath with an affronted hiss.

  Indeed, at this mention, the eyes of every lady and lady-in-waiting lifted from their own affairs and settled upon Alyneri instead. Well what of it? They despised her anyway. “It is no secret that Sandrine du Préc studied at Agasan’s Sormitáge,” Alyneri pointed out. “To many, being a wielder is not a crime.”

  Ianthe didn’t miss a beat in retaliating. “If the name be such a blessing, Duchess, pray tell us why you haven’t gone to study at the famous Adept university? Oh, now I do recall: His Majesty needs you here to personally attend the royal family. It must be then that no other Healer in the kingdom has your skill.”

  Lisandre chittered uncomfortably, “Surely Her Grace just makes a jest, Marchioness. The Prophet says it’s the Maker’s divine breath that infuses his devoted Healers with the ability to mend the sick and injured, but that wielders work the Shadow-light, a dark and deadly power that poisons them against the Maker’s brightness.”

  Alyneri turned to her in wonder, so startled to hear such words from her mouth that she forgot all about the Marchioness and her barbs. “Why are you quoting the Book of Bethamin, Lisandre? How did you come to read banned literature?”

  An uncomfortable silence followed, with the young girl looking frightened and the others uncharacteristically holding their tongues. Finally, Ianthe replied, “The truth is, my dear Duchess, there are some in our kingdom who see beyond the decrepit religion of a bygone era and have embraced the Prophet’s revolutionary teachings.” She gave Alyneri a poisonous smile. “Morwyk is a visionary.”

  “Morwyk,” Alyneri repeated, the name sounding a curse on her lips.

  “Take care, Your Grace,” murmured the Contessa di Remy. “Your tone is somewhat lacking for respect and belies your thoughts.”

  “No, no, Contessa,” Ianthe murmured. “It is no crime to speak one’s mind in our society—we are not the Empire, thank Epiphany. Do go on, my dear,” she said. “Tell us all about what you think of our kingdom’s most powerful duke. No doubt you have little fear of repercussion, being such a close, personal friend of His Majesty.”

  That time Ianthe had really crossed the line—even her gaggle of hens dropped their eyes to their own affairs rather than seem complicit in a slight against their king. Alyneri’s expression darkened, and she opened her mouth to respond in defense of the king’s honor as much as her own, when aid descended from a surprising source.

  “Alyneri d’Giverny,” said a voice from a sunlit corner near the windows, “Duchess of Aracine, is a peer of the court, and as such her opinions are of value to Their Majesties.”

  All eyes turned to behold the strikingly exotic form of Ysolde Remalkhen, the Queen’s Companion, herself an Avataren Fire Princess from the Fourth Line of Kings, and royal to the core.

  Alyneri gave her an immensely grateful look.

  Ysolde stood. She was tall, lithe and graceful, and her dark eyes were framed by barely a line though all knew her to be nearing fifty name days. She wore a slim desert gown of tangerine silk that veritably glowed against her amber skin, and her long raven hair was captured in a net of firestones at the crown. She spoke with the unmistakable accent of Avatar. The other ladies dropped their eyes and wisely kept their peace. “It is well known that Her Majesty is also quite interested in the study of Patterning,” Ysolde informed the room, knowing ears were attuned to her every word.

  Lisandre, innocent that she was, braved, “But my lady, the Prophet Bethamin teaches that Patterning defies the Maker’s will. It seeks to escape the binding laws of our world, sacrosanct rules that should be obeyed, not evaded or…or defiled with foul magical workings.”

  Ysolde turned her calm gaze upon the girl. “You have learned well of the Prophet’s teachings. No doubt you will make a devoted follower.” As Lisandre beamed from the compliment, Ysolde walked toward Alyneri with the silent grace of wind flowing across the desert sands, saying as she went, “I go now to break my fast with the queen.”

  All the women rose and curtsied, and Alyneri escaped behind Ysolde.

  In the hall, Ysolde stopped Alyneri with a finger to her lips and turned back to listen. Conversation drifted out from within the other room.

  “…make an enemy of the girl, Ianthe,” Lady Astor was saying. “She is young, but she has the King’s favor—”

  “And apparently the queen’s as well,” added the Contessa di Remy.

  “I ca
nnot abide her posturing!” Ianthe snapped. “She mopes about like a widow, Wilamina, but she was only betrothed to the val Lorian boy. There was certainly no marriage.”

  “Still, you needn’t have insulted her so.”

  “She is far above herself if she thinks us equals,” Ianthe returned in a spiteful hiss. “She holds an honorary title only, in respect for her family’s service as Healers to the crown. It’s not as if she’s in line for the throne. Besides, look at her, Wilamina. Have you ever seen such a mongrel of an offspring? That pale hair and those strange dark eyes and her skin as tanned as a camp whore’s?”

  “She did have on a truly drab sort of dress,” Lisandre observed, sounding puzzled by the matter.

  The Contessa di Remy could be heard to say then, “I am told her father was a Nadori prince—a cousin to Radov, and very powerful before his death.”

  “Nadori blood,” Ianthe sneered, “is inferior in the extreme.”

  “I vow, she does act queerly,” the Contessa admitted. “Has she no ladies-in-waiting at all?”

  “She has palace staff assigned to her,” Lady Astor reported, “but you’re right, Fiona,” she told the Contessa. “’Tis high time the Lady Alyneri started acting the part if she intends to think herself one of us. She is no longer a girl of thirteen to run about with her skirts above her ankles.”

  “It is utterly disgraceful the way she tromps off wherever she pleases,” Ianthe agreed, “neither with ladies nor a suitable chaperone. I’ve seen her riding alone into the city—even in the countryside!”

  “Or just taking the Truthreader boy along with her,” Lady Astor noted. “’Tis unseemly. People will think them lovers, and him just a youth of ten and four.”

  “Shameful, shameful!” the Contessa clucked. “In the Empire, noble ladies travel with an entourage and never appear in public unattended.”

  “She should’ve been married off long ago,” Ianthe muttered, “preferably to a man who knows how to take a strong hand to a woman who doesn’t follow the Cardinal Virtues and worship properly in the Five Temples. A swift paddling or two in Tregarion’s Temple of Propriety would no doubt teach the Duchess Alyneri d’Giverny of her place.”

  Conversation drifted to Prince Ean then, and discussion of how soon it would be appropriate to congregate upon the Promenade for his arrival parade.

  Outside the room, Alyneri dropped her eyes, unable even to look at Ysolde. “I want to thank you, my lady,” she whispered. “My true feelings betray me when I am least prepared for them.”

  Ysolde placed a finger beneath Alyneri’s chin to lift and capture her eyes with her own. “Daughters of the Sand must help one another.”

  The compliment startled her. “But, Your Highness—”

  Ysolde pressed a finger across her mouth. “Your father was a Nadori prince and a friend to Avatar—heed not the opinions voiced by the jealous, for their minds are poisoned against you. You are descended from royalty, Alyneri d’Giverny. Why else would Her Majesty have allowed the betrothal to her treasured middle son?”

  Alyneri stood speechless.

  The Queen’s Companion hooked her arm through Alyneri’s and turned them to walk together down the hall. “Too long have you been alone in this unfriendly court. You have neither companion nor mentor here to aid in your upbringing, am I right?” Alyneri nodded. “Yet you have survived as best you were able. Daughters of the Sand are strong. Dare not be shamed by your heritage.” She paused and ran a hand gently across Alyneri’s flaxen hair, touching a finger to her cheek, and two beneath her chin. “Wear it proudly.”

  With those words of admonishment, the Queen’s Companion kissed her upon the forehead. Then she departed.

  Alyneri leaned back against the wall and watched Ysolde retreating down the marble-lined hallway. Something exotic lived in her movements, something elemental; she walked as rising flames, as a breeze caressing the fields of wheat. Alyneri had never imagined a champion existing among the queen’s entourage, and especially not one so powerful as the Princess Ysolde Remalkhen.

  She took a deep breath and pushed off the wall, steeling herself as she headed into another day. Ianthe’s yowl was barbed, but she had no claws to speak of. No, Alyneri was only angry that she’d allowed Ianthe to see that her barbs actually stung. And yet…

  Then what do you fear?

  Captivity, she knew at once, remembering the repulsion she’d felt at Lady Astor’s words. The captivity of a Lady’s life, tied to a man or a bit of land, with no future or purpose save the breeding of fine sons. It seemed a cruel fate for anyone, but especially for a young woman with a sense of adventure and a burning desire to see the world. Her own mother had traveled widely in her youth and studied with some of the realm’s most accomplished Healers. It was on one such expedition that the Lady Melisande met Alyneri’s father, Prince Jair, and had fallen madly in love. Alyneri adored the story, and as a girl she’d hoped to live a similar romance.

  Strangely, as if knowing her to be a receptive soul, Fortune’s daughter Love found Alyneri at a young age; but Alyneri’s hopes for love both times had ended in tragedy and heartbreak. Now she prayed never to be stricken with the malady of love again.

  Putting on her most serene of faces and leaving all thoughts of spiteful women and lost loves behind, Alyneri marched down the hall with a purposeful stride. She couldn’t travel to Agasan to study, perhaps, but she could at least take a carriage to her country villa, and the day wasn’t getting any younger. She meant to be away long before Prince Ean’s parade began, and not just because of the delays it would cause at the gates.

  No, she admitted. She would rather spend a week enduring Ianthe’s vicious lashings than risk coming face to face with Ean val Lorian.

  Eight

  ‘True friends are a sure refuge.’

  – Aristotle of Cyrene, circa 101aF

  Tanis yawned prodigiously as he walked down the Promenade, wishing he’d gotten a little more sleep and a lot more breakfast. The plum and apple turnovers he’d snared from the bakery, although yummy and hot from the ovens, had barely stayed with him to the First Circle—that inner wall separating palace from outbuildings—and now his stomach was growling again.

  Workers finishing last preparations for Prince Ean’s parade crowded the Promenade that morning. Some were raising banners on high poles while others hung silk streamers or mounted torches that Tanis knew would flare with vividly colored powders as Prince Ean passed. Already a growing congregation of doe-eyed females were arriving and finding their places, though never straying far from their stern-faced matrons.

  Rather than fight the rising throngs, Tanis detoured off the main and followed a cobbled road through the back lots, past the barracks and storehouses and grain silos. There, he happened upon his best friend Tad among a gathering of Duke val Mallonwey’s men.

  Tanis found the young heir to Towermount outside one of the storage silos overseeing the packing of grain, flour, and other staples for the trip back home. Tad was a handsome youth, with a shock of light brown hair falling over brown eyes, a pointed nose, and a toothy sort of grin. This morning, he seemed less than his ebullient self.

  “Oh, hullo, Tanis,” Tad said when the lad tapped him upon the shoulder. Tad was slouched upon a barrel watching the lines of men passing sack after sack out of the storage cellar, hand-to-hand down the line, until they piled them into a wagon. Tad held out a hand to the line of men. “As if they can’t manage themselves,” he grumbled. “I could be doing something useful like sitting in on father’s strategy meetings with the King—or at least watching Prince Ean’s parade with Killian and the others! But no, my Da has to send me off to count sacks of flour.”

  Tanis slipped onto the barrel beside Tad. “The soldiers have to eat,” he pointed out.

  “It’s demeaning, Tanis. I’m ten and six, for Epiphany’s sake. Whenever will I have the chance again to study real war tactics? This is the opportunity of a lifetime!”

  Tanis knew his friend hoped to emulat
e his father and become a great war commander. “There’s always the Akkad,” he suggested helpfully.

  But Tad scowled at him. “You can’t run off to serve in the Akkad and hope to come back to the kingdom in good standing, Tanis—not that I haven’t thought of it before. Raine’s truth, we all have, I expect. I might win fame and fortune fighting for one of the Sheiks, or even might be lucky enough to serve the Emir himself, but then what? My da would never accept me again, having gone to fight for the enemy. Besides,” he added glumly, “who’d want to convert and worship their desert gods? Azerjaiman. What kind of a name is that? Can you hear yourself praying, ‘Azerjaiman preserve us!’”

  Tad broke into a contemplative smile as he pried at a broken stave on the barrel. “Will you be going to the parade, at least?”

  Tanis sighed. “No. Her Grace scheduled a trip to the country.”

  “Why today of all days?”

  Tanis shrugged. “I didn’t ask. It’s better not to ask, really. Infinitely better. Anyway, this morning she just left me a note.”

  “Shade and darkness, Tanis,” Tad grumbled. “I’d have thought at least one of us would be there to see Prince Ean come home. Epiphany’s Grace you’ll be emancipated soon. Then His Majesty can take you on as a commissioned Adept, and you’ll be able to watch the parades whenever you want.”

  Tanis didn’t think being an emancipated Truthreader was quite so liberating as Tad imagined, for rarely did a commission to the royal court give one more free time. “The King employs two Truthreaders already,” he responded. “He may have no need of me.” The funny thing was, Tanis really hoped he wouldn’t. He knew very well of Her Grace’s disagreement with not being allowed to travel or study abroad, and Tanis also hoped to one day study at the Sormitáge.

  Not that it was entirely fair to blame the king. Fewer Adepts seemed to be born every year, and those few discovered among the populace were immediately considered the property of their monarch. Tanis, like many others, feared the Adept race was dying. Malachai ap’Kalien’s genocidal war had wiped out a huge portion of the population, and in three centuries it still hadn’t recovered—at least not in Dannym, anyway.