3
Three days later—at least I managed to delay an extra day—we left for Ordnung.
Ursula always gets her way. I might as well have tried to stop a stampeding bull. None of my protests swayed her. She insisted she had reasons for me to make the journey. But by the way her sharp eyes rested on me, I knew she mainly wanted to keep me off the cliffs.
And in the dark of night, when the wind howled, I could admit to myself that she might be right to worry. The irrational thoughts plagued me. Hugh couldn’t be alone among those stones, with the weather so cruel. It’s only his body, I told myself, staring up at the flickering shadows that turned the cheerful rosettes into death’s heads. He doesn’t feel it. He’s gone.
Still, I saw the desolation in his summer-blue eyes, wondering why I didn’t come for him.
I tried praying to Glorianna, but She was as silent as She’d always been.
Like crumbling mortar, my rational mind gave way, bit by bit, until by dawn, I felt wrung out and exhausted with the effort not to go to him. Then the sickness rose and I never wanted more to die. It made getting through the nights that much harder. That’s why I delayed only one extra day, to prove I could.
Ursula was right to make me leave. Not that I’d ever tell her that.
The morning we left, I paid a farewell visit to Hugh’s tomb. High Priest Kir accompanied me, to bestow a last blessing, as he and Old Erich planned to accompany us to Ordnung. His strange assistant followed behind. Thankfully he wore that deep cowl as before, keeping his head bowed to spare us the sight of that disfigured face.
Ironically, the sun had chosen that day to shine in the cold winter sky, and the wind, though never gone, blew with teasing pulls of my hair—almost gentle, hinting that spring might indeed arrive someday. We went early, the rising sun at our backs, then lost behind the bulk of Windroven.
The tombs felt none of the warmth. Already Hugh’s matched the others—the stones in the arch of his crypt as worn, equally limned with frost. For a panicked moment I wasn’t even sure which was his. The morning sick—as if it felt my fear—swirled up, and I fumbled for one of the mint candies that seemed to help. I might not have Ursula’s dignity or responsibility, but I’d be mortified to barf on the High Priest’s pink slippers.
Kir’s assistant, however, went unerringly to one farther down than I’d thought. Clutching the wreath of Glorianna roses they’d given me, I trailed behind, ready to tell him that he was wrong. But then I saw the mortar marks, the bits and crumbs leading to the sealed door.
My legs wouldn’t hold me, so I knelt, pretending to a reverence that eluded me while Kir chanted Glorianna’s blessing for the dead. Instead, I counted the archways, so I could find Hugh’s again when we returned. It’s not Avonlidgh’s way, to etch the names or sigils of the dead on their graves. The dead are gone, once more faceless and returned to Glorianna’s arms.
Or to Moranu or Danu, if you belonged to Them. But High King Uorsin had declared Glorianna ascendant, a practice Avonlidgh had long embraced—if only to pacify their conqueror. Hugh hadn’t much cared either way, except that he always said that I could be Glorianna incarnate, in all Her delicate radiance. When I scolded him for the blasphemy, he’d kiss and tickle me until I couldn’t draw breath.
He wasn’t the first to call me Glorianna’s avatar, but I loved it from him best.
“You may lay the wreath, Princess.” Kir’s reminder, followed by a cough, yanked me back to the frozen present, making me realize this wasn’t the first time he’d said it. The assistant shifted restlessly and I caught that eerie flash of green-apple eyes, glimmering with hatred.
Hastily I looked away, down at the lushly pink roses. Surely I had imagined that, too.
“I need some time alone.” My voice sounded frail. Not the High King’s daughter, future Queen of Avonlidgh. I laid my finger against a rose thorn, pressing so it pained me. Tried again. “Leave me.”
“Princess, the caravan—”
I stood, fixing High Priest Kir with my best imitation of Ursula’s stern expression. “The caravan can wait. I highly doubt Her Highness will leave without me.” I should be so lucky.
They both bowed with perfect manners and backed their way out—far better than Dafne had done. The assistant seemed so quiet and respectful that I wondered if I’d imagined that look in his eye.
Then I was alone with Hugh, alone for the first time since he’d left our bed that last morning, kissing me sweetly and promising to rescue my sister. Had it been that night that I’d conceived? He’d been so passionate and tender. We’d made love three times—a first—because he’d wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss him too much.
Oh, how I missed him.
I set the wreath before the crypt, as I was meant to, then—tentatively—touched the stones walling him in. My fingertips found the mortar, as I’d imagined them doing so many nights, digging in so it bit into me, a sick ache where I’d pricked myself with the thorn.
“Hugh?” My whisper echoed like the voices of ghosts. “I’m saying good-bye for a little while. I must travel, but I’ll be back. Your child—do you know about our babe? I’ll make sure to have my lie-in here, at Windroven, as you would have wanted. I promise you that.”
My voice hitched, choked with the tears that couldn’t escape. For the first time, the babe seemed real to me. Would this child also be entombed here someday? It seemed so much easier to envision that eventuality, rather than a living child. I put a hand over my belly, more settled now, and kept the other on the stones, clinging to them. I imagined Hugh on the other side, perhaps also leaning his cheek against the wall, pressing his palm to mine. Death didn’t separate us—only this barrier. That was all.
“I think of you every minute.” The ice on the stones melted beneath my cheek, almost like the feel of the tears I longed for. “This shouldn’t have happened. I don’t understand how it did. I don’t know what to do.”
I closed my eyes, seeing his handsome face again. “You said you’d love me forever, and now”—my voice cracked—“I’m nothing. How could you leave me?”
“Princess Amelia?”
I knew that voice. Dafne, likely playing Ursula’s messenger girl. How much had she eavesdropped? I refused to open my eyes.
“Go away.”
“I can’t, but I’ll wait back here.”
I pried open an eyelid to see she stood as far away as possible. The strange echoes of the tombs had made her sound so much closer. She held her hands folded in front of her, encased in traveling gloves, her expression somber. Nothing about her indicated that she found what I was doing strange. Not a messenger, but yet another babysitter.
“I’ll leave when I’m ready.” Already the stones dried under my cheek. I could no longer see Hugh, just on the other side of the wall.
“Of course, Your Highness. It’s only that Princess Ursula grows . . . impatient.”
“She can’t grow impatient. She’s always full-fledged impatient.”
Dafne made a wry twist of her mouth. “True, Princess.”
With a long breath, I let go of the wall and bent to pluck a rose from the wreath, to take with me. The blossoms seemed far too pretty to leave here. But death doesn’t respect beauty any more than anything else. Plucked from Glorianna’s gardens, they’d begun to die at that moment. Nothing could stop it.
“What do you think happens, after death?”
Dafne paused. I’d surprised her. “I am no priest of Glorianna. Surely you should ask High Priest Kir.”
“I know what his answer would be. I want to hear yours.”
“Why me?” She asked it bluntly, failing to call me Princess, as if to call me out for the extraordinary nature of my question. I’d called her little better than a servant and felt a flush of shame over it, though she couldn’t know that.
“You’re Andi’s librarian. If she thought you knew . . . things, then I want to know what they are.”
“That’s a curious way to ask for my thoughts on death.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Don’t tell me. I know I’m not my sister. You owe me nothing. You probably hate me as much as she does.”
I pushed past her and she laid a hand on my arm, then snatched it back at my outrage.
“Forgive me, Your Highness.” She ducked her head. “But I can tell you, when Andi was here and we . . . discussed how things might go, were she to . . . have to marry King Rayfe—her greatest concern was you. She loves you and never wanted to cause you any pain. That hasn’t changed.”
I watched her lips move and smelled that burnt scent in the air that lately seemed to mean lies. Why was she lying to me? Not in the words necessarily, but running beneath, like an underground river.
“That’s a lie. She murdered my husband in cold blood. That’s hardly failing to cause me pain.”
“I wasn’t there, but she wouldn’t have done such a thing in cold blood. She agonized over whether you’d be hurt.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, watching the flinch of response. To her credit, she held my gaze, steady, unapologetic.
“Secrets that aren’t mine to tell.”
Andi. My sister had secrets. It made me burn with rage to think it. Never had I kept a secret from her.
“Keep them, then. I want nothing of hers, ever again.”
I stepped out onto the path, looking out over the endless ocean. I’d miss it, the constant roar of the surf, the way the light changed on it. The tips of the waves sparkled, catching the rising sun. I’d felt safe here, high up on the cliffs, protected and cherished.
“I suppose I don’t believe that anything really dies.” Dafne said, standing beside me, gazing at the vista. “I think life cycles into life again. It just . . . changes form.”
Putting my hand on my still-flat belly, I mulled her words. Where did this new life come from? Not from nothing.
“Thank you,” I finally replied. “I realize I’m an empty-headed twit and not always as kind as I should be. Your words help.”
“You must understand you have my deepest sympathy, Princess. We all feel a bit of your loss. Prince Hugh was . . . larger than life.”
I nodded, the salt sting in my eyes only from the breeze off the water.
“I can press that for you.”
For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about, then realized she’d indicated the rose from the wreath.
“It’s a way of preserving it, so it dries with the petals intact. Something you can keep.”
“But it will never be what it was.”
“No.” Her voice seemed full of sincere regret. “It can’t be. But it will be a way to remember what it was.”
“Thank you.” I handed it to her and she cupped it in her gloved hands, as if it were something precious. “That’s two kindnesses you’ve done me.”
She curtsied. This time there was no lie behind it.
The ocean stretched on, endless and deep. So much more than the surface. I’d called myself empty-headed. Nothing without Hugh. Maybe it was true. Glorianna knew I’d seen it in the faces of everyone around me. Perhaps, like the ocean, I could be more than the surface, what they saw every day.
I could be Glorianna’s avatar, not just in appearance, but in other ways.
Andi had changed, had she? More than she was. I could be more, too. I would show them all.
I rode in the chariot, letting Dulcinor’s chatter wash over me. High Priest Kir rode with Erich, and Ursula stayed on horseback, though I couldn’t understand how she didn’t freeze. The early sun had disappeared behind a solid bank of clouds, gray as my gown. Bits of snow fell, only to skitter over the hard ground in small drifts of ice.
The midwife, Marin, rode with us. It seemed that I was to be monitored at all times. I told Ursula I felt sure the babe would grow on its own and didn’t need to be watched, but Ursula pulled rank, yet again, and dismissed my complaints.
Dafne made up our fourth, though I couldn’t imagine why she’d return to Castle Ordnung. It seemed to me the librarian had been all too ready to flee with Andi when she left home and had taken shameless advantage of Hugh’s generosity in starting a new library at Windroven. Hugh had laughed, saying Mohraya’s loss was Avonlidgh’s gain, then stroked my cheek in that way he had, reminding me that the principle applied with me, also.
He’d been incorrigible that way.
I pressed my lips against the nausea—the rocking of the carriage did not help—and stared fixedly out the window, the carriage curtains open because the cold air helped me. Winter held the land in a firm grip, the fields barren, no livestock in sight. It seemed so wrong, even with the season. When we passed a burned-out farmstead, I frowned at it.
“What happened here?” I wondered out loud.
Dafne looked up from the book she was reading and peeked through her curtain to see what I looked at, then gave me a grave look. “The war.”
Rayfe and his horrible armies. “The Tala did all this? Why would they attack innocent farmers?”
“That’s how demons do,” Dulcinor assured me. “They don’t care a whit for innocence. They slaughter everything in their path. I hear their foul creatures even eat people alive.” Marin said nothing, her needles clicking as they wove the yarn piece she worked on.
Dafne cleared her throat. “In truth, most of these outlying farms were cleared by the armies defending Windroven.”
“Why?” The concept flabbergasted me. Had Hugh mentioned this to me? Surely not. But then, we never discussed unpleasant things. He hadn’t liked to see me distressed.
“Because, in a siege situation, the defenders must make sure the attackers lack as many resources as possible.” Dafne closed her book, using a finger to mark the page. “The people inside the castle can only last as long as the supplies do. It’s good strategy to limit what the attackers can access.”
It made sense, though I’d never thought about it before. “But the siege didn’t last that long.”
“Because Andi’s marriage to Rayfe stopped it. That’s the only reason. It could have gone on much longer.” Dafne’s round face looked pinched and I vaguely recalled she’d lost her family—and heritage—to a siege during the campaigns that made my father High King. “She couldn’t bear to have this kind of devastation occur to protect her.”
“She married him to rescue me,” I argued.
“You’re so lucky those wicked Tala didn’t harm you, Princess!” Lady Dulcinor fanned her flushed face, though she kept the fur robe mounded on her lap.
I nodded as if I agreed but wondered if it was luck. For all that they’d kidnapped me, King Rayfe and his men had been careful with me, even kind. They were terrifying, of course, all long, wild hair and fearsome beastlike eyes—and all those wild, strange animals around them!—but Rayfe had promised I wouldn’t be hurt. And I hadn’t been.
Instead Andi had traded herself for me. Wasn’t that what had happened?
Dafne watched me, seeming serene, but that undercurrent of lies wafted through the back of her gaze, the burnt-toast scent in the air turning my stomach. She knew something about it. Secrets that weren’t hers to tell.
Andi’s secrets.
Feeling the chill, I closed the curtains. Better not to look.
Alarmed shouts and the bellowing cry of a horse in pain jerked me from a sleepy doze on the second afternoon. Dulcinor emitted a thin wail and began praying to Glorianna so loudly that she drowned out all outside noises except for Ursula’s sharp commands, cutting through the tumult.
Dafne, who’d had her curtain open, shook her head at me. “I can’t see anything.”
On the other side of the carriage, the clang of weapons burst out, with crackling ricochets of orders and a tumult of incoherent yelling. Full of dread, yet burning to find out, I twitched my own curtain. Marin leaned over and put her sturdy hand on mine.
“Best not, Your Highness,” she said quietly. “Sometimes the mouse best avoids the cat by staying in its hole.”
A thunder of hoofbeats roared up and past our carriage, rumbling off into the distance. We waited, Dafne, Marin, and I staring at one another, while Dulcinor wept, face buried in her skirts—which would surely be ruined by her tears and makeup.
The curtain jerked open and we all jumped, Dafne pressing a hand to her heart.
Ursula’s sharp face filled the opening, quickly surveying us for damage. “All is well. We can continue on in a few minutes.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Her narrow lips pressed together in annoyance, though not at me this time. “Highway robbers. And on the King’s Road, too. But we’ve run them off easily enough.”
Angry voices drifted down the road and I recognized one as belonging to Old Erich. Everybody else was out there, deciding things. I should be, too. Not a mouse. “I want to see.”
“You have legs. Come out and see, then.” She dropped the curtain, and the hoofbeats of her warhorse faded.
I glanced at the other women, uncertain, but Dafne nodded at me. “I want to see, too.”
Dulcinor didn’t seem to hear us, just kept weeping into the fabric she’d be sorry she ruined, now that we’d survived. Dafne made the decision and popped open the carriage door. After a quick glance about, she stepped out and held a hand up to help me down. At first there didn’t seem to be much to see, just a lot of dirt scuffed through the snow. But there—a man lay dead in a snowbank, long, dark hair snarled, several of the Hawks’ arrows protruding from his chest. Other shadows marred the snow in unsightly heaps.
Down our caravan, King Erich was indeed shouting at the lieutenant of Ursula’s Hawks, and it seemed Ursula had just joined them.
“. . . an abomination against Avonlidgh that I cannot travel through my own kingdom without being attacked by riffraff!”
“We may have crossed into Mohraya, King Erich.” Ursula stared him down, diverting him from her lieutenant. “In which case the failure belongs to me.”
He turned more purple than his expensively dyed robes. “The fault for all of this lies with the High King! For what did we trade our wealth and independence if he’s going to cower inside Ordnung and let the rest of the Twelve fall into chaos?”
Ursula’s eyes glittered brighter gray than the overcast sky. “You’re edging into treason, King Erich.”
High Priest Kir, bright pink robes the only other color in the wintery landscape, smoothly stepped up, making the circle of Glorianna in the air, which everyone echoed dutifully. “Praise Glorianna that we are all safe, and our gratitude to the brave escort that protected us! King Erich, it grows colder and I believe it may snow. Shall we retire to our conveyance and discuss these atrocious events?”
His assistant, white robes tainted by a spray of bright blood, stood close behind, head bowed so the cowl hid his face. Odd that he’d been so close to the fighting.
“An excellent suggestion.” Ursula nodded, giving her Hawks hand signals. “We shall leave the slain robbers as a caution and continue immediately.”
With that, we were escorted to the carriage. I should have said something. Led a prayer. Next time I would.
“At least it wasn’t the Tala,” I said, as much for Dulcinor’s peace of mind as anything. Marin gave me a long look as she picked up her discarded knitting. “What?” I asked her.
“They likely were Tala, Princess.” Dafne’s tone was gentle but firm. “Those men had the right coloring. And it makes sense.”
“Why haven’t they gone home, then? They should all go back to the Wild Lands and leave us be. They’ve done enough damage here.”
“That’s a good question.” Dafne looked contemplative. “Seems that they would, if they could.”
When we reached Louson, to stay at the small but decent manse of one of our father’s oldest friends, the fertile river valley looked lovely and peaceful under a blanket of pristine snow. It had taken three days of travel to fully escape the signs of the Siege of Windroven. It would not make Old Erich any happier to see this part of Mohraya looking so well.
I understood better why Andi had restlessly paced the turrets and high walls of Windroven, no matter how I begged her to stay inside. Remembering how my ladies and I had treated the first battles as a spectacle, I groaned at my foolishness. No wonder Andi hadn’t wanted to be around me.
All that time, I’d thought she’d been afraid only of being forced to marry our enemy. Instead she’d been thinking about the lands outside the walls, the dead bodies lying about the countryside. Hugh had told me not to fret about the siege and I hadn’t.
And then Kir had been the one to soothe Erich, by calling on Glorianna, after Ursula saved us all. My uselessness ate at me.
After a welcome feast I barely touched—in fact, I excused myself early because the smell of the poached fish nearly made me lose the little I had eaten—I went to Glorianna’s chapel, to pray for guidance.
I’d been here before, when I’d paid the priests to perform a High Protection for Andi, to save her from Rayfe and the Tala. It looked much the same as it had that night—except that the rose window over the altar had since been repaired. The sight of it brought back all the emotions of that night, my desperate fear for Andi’s safety and the stark terror when the black wolf crashed through. My utter shame that I ran, leaving her behind.
“Do you pray, Princess?”
I jumped nearly out of my skin, half expecting the wolf to attack again. But no—that was done and he wouldn’t come for me. It wasn’t me he’d wanted. The assistant priest lurked in the shadows, white robes an echo of the marble walls beyond the flickering candles, still wearing that deep cowl. I hadn’t heard him speak before and now I imagined his twisted whisper came from a reptilian face, scarred into a monster’s visage.
Standing, I put a hand over my belly. “Yes. I prefer to be alone.”
Instead of leaving, he sidled closer. “They did a good job of replacing the window. It’s even grander this time—a great tribute to the glory of our goddess.”
“Yes.” I held my ground, though he came nearer. My heart thumped, but I had no reason to be afraid. Or did I? That flash of utter hatred in his eyes had seemed so vivid in that moment. Surely those dark memories of the past, on top of the attack today, had made me jumpy. My personal guard was right outside. Besides, no harm could come to me here, under Glorianna’s gaze.
“All hail Glorianna.” He spoke to the rose window, and I started to echo the prayer, until I broke off, realizing he’d said it with irony, not reverence. He turned his head in an abrupt, liquid movement, and I startled, jumping back and losing my footing on the risers. His hand snaked out and seized my shoulder, steadying me. “Don’t fall, Princess. You wouldn’t want to risk the precious burden you carry.”
“Unhand me.”
He let me go and held up his hands, surprisingly brown and weathered for a priest. “No offense, Your Highness. I meant only to assist in your time of need.”
“With my balance or with prayer?”
“Yes.”
“Are you playing games with me?”
“With the future Queen of Avonlidgh and she known throughout the land as Glorianna’s avatar? Why would I risk myself in such a way?”
“My sister does that—answers a question with a question.”
“Indeed.”
“So which is it, balance or prayer?”
“Prayer is a form of self-reflection that leads to balance, but you don’t need my help. Glorianna is within you. She hears you without assistance from such as me.”
“That’s close to blasphemous.”
“And yet Glorianna does not strike me down for my words.”
“Who are you?” I tried to demand in my usual way, but my words came out sounding frightened.
“What more do you need to know, but that I am a priest of Glorianna and thus trustworthy?”
“Who once again refuses to answer my question. I could have you punished for your impertinence.”
His gaze flashed from the shadow of the cowl, like a cat’s eyes at night. “But you won’t do that, will you, Amelia?”
“I won’t, if you leave me in peace.”
“Peace is an expensive commodity—I highly doubt you can afford it.”
“What in Glorianna’s name does that mean?”
“Only that peace—true inner peace—comes from seeing yourself clearly and accepting who you are.”
I looked away, bothered that I couldn’t see his face. Bothered that there might be nothing in me to see. “You presume far too much for a lowly assistant priest. You understand nothing about me.”
“Looking in a mirror to fix your pretty face isn’t the same as seeing yourself.”
The impertinence—and the uncomfortable parallel to my own thoughts—made me gasp, and I swung on him, full of imperial rage.
“Your Highness!” High Priest Kir called from the rear of the chapel. “Had I known you intended to come here, I would have been here sooner. I will assist with your prayers.”
The assistant priest faded back, but a breath of a laugh made me think he mocked Kir and me both.
“I shall retire, then, sir.” He’d folded those coarse, tanned hands into his loose sleeves and bowed his face.
“Yes, yes.” Kir waved him away, busying himself with preparations at the altar.
When I looked again, he was gone.