TANWEN
“I don’t care what you agreed to. I ain’t lettin’ you go, Tannie!”
“Letting me? Letting me!” My voice carried all the way down the palace hallway, and I cared less than a hathberry in a hailstorm. “Since when do you have that sort of say over me, Brac Bo-Bradwir? Letting me, as if you were my . . . my . . .”
“Your father?” Brac folded his arms across his chest, triumph scribbled all over his handsome, sunburned, stupid, bearded face. “Aye, that’s an idea. Let’s ask your father what he thinks about this whole thing. I doubt he’s keen to let his daughter go gallivanting around the globe with a pirate.”
“He’s not a pirate! He’s the captain of a ship!”
“Well, now you’re just sorting sniffler fur.”
“There’s an enormous difference between a pirate and a ship captain. When was the last time you captained anything except a wax-bean cart down a Pembroni alley?”
He recoiled. “Oh, so that’s it, is it? You think he’s better than me.”
Oops.
“That is not what I said, Brac.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s there, plain as pie on your face.”
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “Can we talk about this later?” I glanced around the hallway. “I’m sure we’re disturbing . . . someone important.”
“No, we’ll talk about this now, and I don’t give a flying fluff-hopper who we’re disturbing. You wouldn’t talk to me in your private chambers, and I practically had to chase you out the door, you left so fast.”
Aye, that had rather been the point of leaving. To avoid this conversation.
I took off down the hall again. “Don’t you have to report for guard duty, or something?”
“On medical leave until next week, earliest. I was stabbed in the gut, you’ll remember. Guess you would have liked to see that job finished, eh?”
“Oh, shove it. If I’d wanted to, I could have poisoned or maimed you just about every day of your life. I knew exactly where you slept, you’ll remember. And I still do, so how about you mind your nibbles and nackles?”
In spite of everything, Brac chuckled.
But I didn’t want matters to get confused with warmth and nostalgia. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind, Brac. I’m going with Mor and the others, and that’s the end of it.”
He flared right back up. “It ain’t the end of nothin’!” His Tirian got worse when he was angry. “I’m your betrothed, and I have some say here if anyone does.”
“Aye, about that . . .” But my objection stopped in my throat. I eyed that blasted spot on Brac’s tunic, under which his bandages had been just a few days before. Was he ready to have that conversation yet? Would he ever be healed enough for me to tell him I didn’t love him like a wife should love her husband?
Blazes. How had I gotten myself into this mess?
Because he was dying. I had thought I was giving him a final moment of joy and peace before he slipped from this life. Instead, Warmil and Karlith saved him, and now we were engaged. I was glad they had saved him, of course. My heart would break to lose my best friend in the world since as far back as I could remember. But my acceptance of his proposal hadn’t been genuine. It had been borne of pity—rash and foolish.
And if I ever told him so, I didn’t think he’d recover from it.
“Tannie! You listening?”
I jumped. “Oh. Not really.”
He rolled his eyes. “Figured.” He stepped toward me, grabbed my hands, and looked into my eyes in a way that wouldn’t have made my skin crawl a couple moons ago. But now I felt like I was covered in scuttlebugs. Everything was so mixed up.
“Tannie, ain’t no one has loved you better than me your whole life. Ain’t that true?”
I thought of Father. He had loved me, truly, but he’d been locked away for so many years. Cut off from everyone, including me. I hardly knew the man.
Brac had been there. Always.
“Aye, Brac. I know.” I glared steel at him. “But that doesn’t mean you get to make my choices for me.”
An image of Brac hog-tying me and plunking me before an altar popped into my head.
Creator preserve me.
He sighed, but it by no means signaled defeat. “Tannie, honestly. You’re the most impossible lass who ever breathed. If I don’t have say over your life, who does?”
“Me, possibly,” a new voice intruded.
Father. And the sound of his voice nearly sent me jumping from my skin. I whirled around to see him leaning against the stone wall of the hallway, all gray-bearded and solemn.
“Father. What are you doing here?”
“Coming to see you. But I heard you a league off.”
Heat rose in my face. “Just having a discussion with Brac.”
“So I heard.”
Hotter heat. Why did his piercing gaze make me squirm? “Having a bit of a disagreement.”
“Aye, that’s right,” Brac cut in. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her about that pirate, sir. We respect your thoughts on everything, o’ course.”
I spun around and glowered at Brac. Kissing up to my father? The sniveling, dirty tactic didn’t suit him.
Father didn’t respond directly. “Tanwen, Bo-Bradwir. I have dark news.”
I turned back to him. “Dark news? What’s happened?”
“Gareth was found dead in his cell this morning.”
“Dead?” I stared at him, sure I had misheard. “Dead-dead? As in, no longer living?”
“Aye.” Father made to reach out to me, then hesitated and pulled his hand back.
A hundred questions tumbled through my mind. “Was he murdered? Who did it? Does the queen know? She must. Is she all right?”
Father shook his head as if my questions buzzed around him like flies. I forgot. He wasn’t used to human company yet, let alone my league-a-minute rambling.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Quite all right.” But he didn’t look all right. He looked like he was sifting through my questions with effort. “Not sure what happened. Guards saw nothing. Queen Braith has her people investigating.”
“And the queen . . . is she . . . ?”
“Not well. She is pretending, though.”
And there it was. That was why Father’s piercing gaze made me so uncomfortable. Because the man didn’t just look at you. He looked right through you. There was no hiding anything from him.
Which was why I cringed at his next question.
“Tannie, what’s the trouble with Mor?”
Truly, I had much to hide. How could I say two words about Mor without Father seeing my feelings for him ran deeper than mere friendship? Father had probably already guessed I didn’t harbor a shred of romance in my heart for Brac.
“Nothing is the trouble with Mor,” I said. “It’s Mor’s ship. Brac doesn’t think I should go with the other weavers.”
“I see no reason for it,” Brac added. “It ain’t safe. And it’s all for the sickly one, ain’t it?”
“Gryfelle.” I gritted my teeth. “Her name is Gryfelle. And Mor knows what he’s doing. His father ran a shipping company, and Mor was practically raised on a ship.”
“I don’t care if Cethor herself is captaining the ship. It ain’t safe to go to the four corners of the world, no matter who’s at the helm!”
Brac invoking the name of a goddess. That was rich.
“Mor has captained ships before.”
“Pirated, you mean.”
“Forced into it by Gareth!” I felt like I’d aged twenty years since Brac and I first started having this conversation. “How many times do I have to remind you of that? A lot of decent people were pushed into indecent situations by that tyrant. Mor was just trying to survive.” I turned to Father. “Tell him I can go. Please.”
“Well.” Father looked at us both. “I am going.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“The queen has commissioned me as her royal envoy.”
Hope blossomed inside me. “So . . . if you’re going, then of course I’ll go. Right?”
“Well, I—”
“It’s safe. It is. Warmil will be there. He’s a former king’s guard captain. And you don’t really know Aeron yet, but her skill with a blade would make the swordiest swordsman blush. And Dylun will be there in case we need to fend off anyone with a book. And Mor wouldn’t let anything happen to me.” Heat flushed my cheeks again. Because that statement was true enough, but unless I was totally daft, Mor wasn’t only about friendship with me, either.
Brac huffed. “I can’t believe you’re trying to make this sound reasonable. You ain’t that pirate’s first priority, Tannie. He’ll be about that sick lass, you know. You’re extra window dressing, far as he’s concerned.”
“Gryfelle. Her name is Gryfelle!”
“Aye, so you’ve said. Whatever her name is, that’s who Mor will be paying attention to. Not you.”
I could have thrown him out the palace window.
“Are my ears burning?” A fourth voice, and not a welcome one at this exact moment.
At least not in front of Father and Brac. For the fourth voice belonged to none other than the smirky captain in question.
Brac crossed his arms. “Burning your ears?” he muttered under his breath. “That could be arranged.”
I shot him a look, then turned to face Mor. My stomach tightened at the sight of him—cropped dark hair, twinkling blue eyes, the scruffy smatterings of a beard, a gold ring punched through his ear. I didn’t know quite what to say with him standing there, in the flesh.
And then my gift betrayed me. A silky red ribbon poured from one of my hands and curled through the air toward Mor. One heartbeat of pure mortification stuttered in my chest, then I lunged for the strand. I waved the ribbon into mist. And just in time, too. Fry me if the blasted thing wasn’t about to curl itself into a heart right around Mor’s head.
I steeled my will and determined no more strands would come streaming out of me in front of these three. “We were just talking about the trip,” I said quickly to fill the awkward silence.
Mor’s gaze lingered on me—impassive, impossible to read—and then he turned to my father as if I hadn’t spoken. “I understand you’ll be joining us, General Bo-Arthio.”
“Please.” Father held up a hand. “Yestin.”
For some reason, their polite conversation irritated me. “Hey!” I snapped. That got their attention. “Gryfelle is my friend and she’s desperately sick. I want to go. It could just as easily be me.”
If only they knew.
Mor glanced at me again, but I still couldn’t read him. First time that had been the case since I had known him. He turned back to my father. “The queen’s orders have moved up our timeline a bit.”
Brac’s tone was vicious. “Well, we wouldn’t want anything to foul up your precious timeline.”
“I’d accept your kind words if they weren’t laced with venom, guardsman,” Mor replied coldly.
“Enough.” Father sounded like he was scolding a couple of farm boys. “I’ll be ready before the afternoon’s out, Captain Bo-Lidere. We’ll travel via the king’s road—that is, the queen’s road—I assume?”
“Aye. Queen’s road to Physgot. The queen’s navy has prepared the ship for us, and we’ll set sail from that port.”
“Very good. As I said, I’ll not hold you up.”
“Um . . . anyone?” I waved my hands. “Anyone care to speak to me? Because we seem to have a problem here. I say I’m going, and that’s tha—”
Never finished my thought. Next thing I knew, I was on the stone floor of the castle hallway.
“Tannie?” Brac’s face appeared over me. Then Mor and Father beside him. All brows furrowed; frowns everywhere.
I couldn’t find my voice to answer him, or to address Mor or Father.
And then the room splintered into pieces.
Rips opened up in the fabric of reality. Mor’s face wavered and then disappeared. Brac, Father, and the walls of the palace hall ribboned to shreds and vanished.
I wasn’t on my back anymore. I stood alone in an empty, black room.
“Hello?” I took a step forward but stumbled in the darkness. “Is anyone here?”
No reply. No echo. Only the sort of black silence that swallows you from the inside out.
“Where am I?” I called out.
Nothing. Just dark. And silence.
But then silvery strands began to trickle down around me from the ceiling of blackness above. Pale light emanating from the strands struggled to break through the pitch dark. I stepped toward one of the strands.
“There are words in them,” I said aloud to no one.
And true as the moon, the strands weren’t wisps of story. They were actually made of words themselves. I watched them scroll by.
Yestin Bo-Arthio, First General under Caradoc II, was the sole witness to the confession of Gareth Bo-Kelwyd.
Tanwen was a lonely little girl who found solace in the company of her best friend, Brac Bo-Bradwir.
In the deepest, most honest part of her heart, Tanwen had to admit that Mor Bo-Lidere was something special.
Tanwen was a gifted storyteller, but she often doubted her ability to create something truly worthwhile—something all her own.
I stared at the dripping silver words. Puzzled. Confused.
Who was this Tanwen? And what was a storyteller?
All at once, light exploded around me—crashed down onto my head and body. I blinked against it. Blinked into several faces, all peering over me like I was a prize grazer being auctioned at market.
“Are you all right?” The oldest of the faces, covered in a close-trimmed, grizzled beard.
“Sakes, Tannie, what were you on about? You was havin’ a fit, or somethin’. You all right?” A young, sunburned face. Blond hair.
The third face had gone pale as a noonday cloud, and I couldn’t place the expression in his eyes. Horror?
I sat up, only then realizing I’d fallen over at some point.
Stone walls. Tapestries. Arched windows, torches in brackets along the wall. “Where am I?”
Looks passed between the men.
I frowned at them. “And who in the blazes are you?”
Father passed me another cup of brisk-leaf tea across the table in our front room. “Are you sure you’re well, Tannie?” The concern hadn’t left his eyes since I collapsed.
“Of course.” I buried my face into my cup as best I could.
It had only taken a few reminders—their names, who they were to me, what we were doing in the palace, what we’d been talking about—and then I’d come back to myself. I told them I must have fallen and bumped my head. They were worried, of course, but seemed to take my word for it.
At least, Father and Brac did. Mor pretended to.
I got the sinking feeling Mor had witnessed such collapses far too many times to buy what I was peddling.
How long before he would corner me and force me to admit what had truly happened?
I sipped my fire-hot tea and barely noticed the roof of my mouth scald.
“It seemed we lost you for a moment.” Father was staring at me, no matter how I tried to hide my face behind my cup. “And you look shaken now.”
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like a pile of ashes in my mouth.
Because, truly, there was no question about it now: Gryfelle En-Blaid’s mind wasn’t the only one that had begun to slip away inside these palace walls.