After five nights in Kingstower, Fabithe is beginning to wish that someone would hurry up and make another attempt on Rys’s life, just so that he’d have something to do.
There’s a unique kind of isolation in being awake at night. Not a matter of solitude – he’s quite capable of being content in his own company, or alone in a crowd for that matter – but of difference. Most people sleep through the darkness. Being one of the few who don’t, or can’t, often feels like a special kind of curse that no one else even knows exists. It doesn’t help that overdramatic thoughts like comparing sleeplessness to a curse somehow come far more easily in the black span before dawn than at any other time.
He walks to the unshuttered window of the receiving room, searching for the faintest hint of day, but finds nothing. The moons have not yet set, though Alosami sits low on the horizon; the stars are faint and cold. Better than Castellany, where a clear night was a rarity and even the scant consolation of familiar constellations was denied him. But the comfort of realising one’s own smallness in the face of the endless sky goes only so far before it tips into bleakness.
Of course, having a job to do makes it all more bearable. He’s not merely waiting out the night, as he has many times before. He’s protecting the king. In many ways, it’s better than daytime. During the day, he’s officially off duty while Rys goes out to fulfil his many obligations as ruler of the Westlands, accompanied by his new rotation of guards and under strict safety instructions. Which leaves Fabithe free to do whatever he wants – as long as whatever he wants can be found within the confines of these three richly appointed, empty rooms. He exercises. He plays ondan against himself. He reads Rys’s books. Sometimes he even sleeps. Yet none of it is useful. None of it is what he came here for. And when he’s not being of use …
When he’s not being of use, he finds himself thinking too much. About Oriana. About Rys and their history. About how he’s home but not home: a single link twisted so far out of shape that it no longer fits the chain. It turns out that part of him still wants to fit. Part of him – a part he thought long dead – still longs for his family. And to that part of him, this secret existence is the worst of both worlds.
He concentrates on pacing up and down, moving as silently as possible back and forth between the receiving room and the dressing room. He distracts himself by thinking of as many new ways to assassinate Rys as he can – so that he can guard against them, of course. Slowly, the light changes and dawn arrives. That’s when he hears movement in the bedchamber, followed eventually by the creak of the opening door.
“Good morning,” Rys greets him. “How was the night?”
Fabithe shrugs. “Quiet.”
“Like all the rest, then.”
“They’re only quiet till they’re not.”
“True.” Rys smiles. From behind his back, he brings out a garland, which he drapes around Fabithe’s neck. “Happy Balance Day.”
Balance Day. There’s a tradition he’s not thought about in a long while. They celebrate the four turning points of the seasons in Castellany, just as they do here, but he never paid much attention to the revelry. If he’s honest, all those feast days and festivals reminded him too strongly of home and family and everything he’d lost.
“Do you still throw the colours?” he asks, trying his best for nonchalance, while his younger self bubbles over with memories of stumbling up the stairs to bed, tired and happy, hair and skin liberally streaked with multi-hued powder.
“Of course!” Rys grins. “The girls weave flowers and feathers in their hair, same as they ever did. And we have the slaki, the apple brandy, the music and dancing …”
Slaki. Little pastries shaped like birds, flavoured with dried fruit. They ate them by the handful, as children. And apple brandy … Morani was deemed old enough to taste it, the last Balance Day before the trial. A spiced concoction, deceptively refreshing, that went down like the juice of the fruit it was made from. It was only the next morning it caught up with him and he spent the day dizzy and vomiting, much to his father’s scorn. You are a man now. A man must learn how to hold his liquor.
The memory sits uneasy in Fabithe’s head, all angles and hardness, as most of his memories of Petros do now. It pops the bubble of nostalgia, bringing him back to reality.
“Shame I can’t take part this year,” he says. “Since, you know, if anyone recognises me I’ll be executed. But you can leave me a bottle of apple brandy.”
“Morani …”
He waits for the queasy satisfaction that comes with stirring Rys’s guilt, but it doesn’t come. He just feels tired. And sad. Perhaps if he could leave these three bloody rooms for a span or so –
But he can’t. It’s not that he cares what Rys thinks, or for the risk to his life on his own behalf. It’s that he made Oriana two promises.
“Go on, Rys,” he says. “You’re the king. You have to lead the festivities. I’ll see you later.”
And Rys does go, albeit with a show of reluctance, leaving Fabithe with the wilting garland around his neck. It’s not long before a servant arrives with the requested bottle and a plateful of slaki. Fabithe eats a pastry, but the flavour of it is so redolent of childhood that he can’t bring himself to eat another. Instead, he opens the brandy and proceeds to get quietly drunk.
I wake late to the sound of conversation and laughter drifting up from below. When I descend the stairs, it’s to find a garland of white flowers and dark green leaves being dropped over my head. There’s a general cheer, and Luthan – who appears to be responsible for the garland – grabs my hand and pulls me over to the table, where various foods are laid out amid a scattering of petals.
“Happy Balance Day!”
I blink around at the assembled faces. Not only my friends but most of the Emerald Blades as well, all of them looking happy and excited. This is clearly going to be one of those Endarion-specific things that I lost along with the first twelve years of my life, and what I saw of it through Fabithe’s eyes didn’t help much.
“Balance Day?” I echo.
“It happens twice a year,” Luthan explains. “When day and night are in perfect balance.”
“Ohh.” Not as alien as I thought. It’s a long time since I gave up trying to keep track of the dates according to the system I recognise, but I did notice the days getting longer. “I’d call that an equinox. So what happens on a Balance Day?”
“Well, this Balance Day is ruled by Air. Air is on Fire’s side, so – ”
“Sorry. On Fire’s side?”
She nods earnestly. “It’s said that Fire, in the form of the sun, escaped from a crack in the Earth and fled up into the sky. Every year, it tries to get away completely, but every year it gets pulled back again. The long days of summer, when the sun is highest and brightest, are when Fire is most powerful. The short days of winter, when it is lowest and coldest, are when Earth is most powerful.”
Makes sense, I suppose. “And Air?”
“Air tries to help Fire. In the growing days of spring, when Air is most powerful, the air warms up and lifts the sun higher in the sky. It tips the balance from Earth to Fire.”
“Then Water …”
“Does the opposite. In the shrinking days of autumn, when Water is most powerful, that’s when the most rain falls from the sky to drag the sun down. Water is on Earth’s side.”
“Balance Day in autumn is a special festival in the Citadel,” Oriana puts in. “But this one is important too. Water is at its weakest point today, so we must celebrate the start of its return to strength. Otherwise the goddess will bring ill luck in the year ahead.”
I look at her. “Do you really believe that?”
“I am not sure. But it is always good to have a reason for fun.”
“So what usually happens on a Balance Day?”
She gives me a small, mischievous smile. “Wait and see.”
As it turns out, Balance Day appears to consist mainly of eating, drinking and playing silly games. Isidor and Luthan have traditions that I now recognise from the Westlands, like the pastries and the flower garlands and throwing the colours, which seems to be a milder version of paintball in which you try to cover your unsuspecting victim in as much coloured powder as possible. Toralé walks us through the steps of a dance from Ilemane that he executes perfectly even without sight, the rest of us stumbling and laughing in his wake. Then Oriana and the Blades chip in with their own customs: in the Citadel they draw designs in water on the stones of the walls for luck, believing that once the drawings have faded and dried, what they showed will come true in the year ahead; while in the Keep – where they worship the God of Earth and therefore hold their key celebration at midwinter – the equinox is primarily an excuse for the younger folk to play what I can only describe as an elaborate form of kiss chase. In the end, what we have is a hybrid celebration to which everyone has contributed a piece … except me. If they observe Balance Day in Northfell, I’ve no way to know.
At some stage in the proceedings, Isidor produced a bottle of apple brandy and poured us all a measure. Now I sneak a second helping, though I found the first one almost entirely unpleasant, and sit down next to Toralé on a wooden bench at the side of the room. If I’m honest, I’ve been avoiding him. Trying not to succumb to the tug I feel between us. Yet now, I suddenly don’t care.
“I wish I had roots,” I say obscurely, but he understands.
“You wanted to share something of your own.”
“I mean, I’d at least like to have the option.”
“Do they not celebrate the equinox in the other world?”
Hearing how carefully he pronounced the unfamiliar word, I’m struck by something close to love. Toralé is the sweetest person I’ve ever met. If the pattern wants me to be with him, why fight it?
“Some people do,” I say. “But I never did.”
He tilts his head, listening to the sounds of the room. “They’re still playing the Emerald game?”
“Yeah.” I watch Oriana and Luthan, both of them helpless with laughter as they chase a couple of the youngest Blades and are chased in turn. There isn’t much actual kissing involved – I think Oriana has given up trying to convince herself that she habitually kisses people on a friendly basis. Mainly they’re just throwing coloured powder at each other.
“But not you?” Toralé asks.
“Maybe I am,” I say, spurred on by sadness and alcohol. And when he turns his face back towards me, I lean in to kiss him.
Immediately I notice the difference. This feels right, in a way that neither of the other two kisses I’ve shared in my life did. The softness of his lips against mine, the cinnamon taste of him, are somehow familiar in the best way possible. Like hearing a favourite song for the first time in years, exciting yet easy to fall into. He kisses me back, one hand settling on my waist to pull me closer, and my slight guilt over not asking first fades as it becomes clear that he wants this as much as I do. I’d be happy to stay here forever. Except …
Except that I don’t trust this swell of emotion. Though I briefly succumbed to the constant tug of the pattern, I don’t believe in soulmates or love at first sight. The fact that this feels like something far greater than just a kiss with someone I’m attracted to is more unsettling than romantic, as if some unknown force is trying to convince me that I made the right choice. That I had a choice.
And except that when we pull apart again, Toralé is frowning.
“Alyssia,” he says softly. “I can’t.”
My conflicting urges curdle into pure embarrassment. Can’t. What does that mean? That I misread him. That he didn’t welcome the kiss after all. That he did, but now he regrets it. Worst-case scenario, that he thinks I was bad at it but doesn’t want to say so …
“Sorry,” I stammer, hot all over and thankful he can’t see me. “I shouldn’t have – ”
He touches my arm, and I fall silent.
“I feel it too,” he says. “The connection between us. Luthan told me about our previous lives, and … I want to kiss you. But – ”
Maybe he shares my uncertainty over the pattern. That would be reassuring. It might even give us a basis for something real. “But?”
“But I’m in your debt, and that means it isn’t possible. Until my debt is repaid, I’m not a worthy suitor for you.”
“Suitor?” It’s beginning to dawn on me that recklessly kissing people from unfamiliar cultures, without knowing what a kiss means where they come from, may be a bad idea. “I don’t want a suitor. That sounds far too serious.”
“Then why did you kiss me?”
“I don’t know! Because I like you? I kissed Oriana, too, and she didn’t place this much significance on it.”
He looks hurt. “You kissed Oriana?”
That’s when Isidor steps into the middle of the room and holds up his hands; at the sudden hush around us, we fall silent too. Toralé’s emotions down our bond are a confused jumble, and mine aren’t much better. Clearly we need to continue this conversation at some point, but I can’t claim I’m sorry to have to leave it for now.
“The sun is sinking,” Isidor says. “I hope you will all join me outside for the more formal part of the day.”
As the Blades file out of the house, I turn to Toralé. “We should talk later.”
He nods, frowning again. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“You’re not angry with me, are you?”
“Of course not, eminalithé.” With what seems to be a vast amount of effort, he manages a smile. “As you say, we should talk later.”
He gets to his feet, just as Luthan finishes saying something to Oriana before coming over to join us.
“Will you both help with the ritual?” she asks.
“What ritual?”
“The real celebration of Balance Day. It requires five people.”
Of course it does. Neutrally, I ask, “What’s involved?”
“There has to be someone to represent each element.” She picks up a tray from a nearby table, loaded with various objects. Rather shyly, I link arms with Toralé before following her to the door. “Toralé, your people worship the Red God, so you should take Fire.”
“As you wish, thacis darretha.”
“Fabithe would have been ideal for Earth, but Isidor is willing to take his place. Oriana is Water, of course.” To me, she adds, “And you should represent Air, daughter of the sky.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what Ariamé means.”
“Oh. Then do we all have names that sort us into elements like that?” It would be an unlikely coincidence if we did, but by now nothing would surprise me.
“Not exactly. Oriana means dawn – ”
Which I already knew. “Not very watery.”
“No. But it’s easy to place her, because of who she is. And the rest of you fit. For instance, I would translate the name Toralé as a cup or chalice of fate. The chalice is the symbol of Fire.”
It sounds tenuous to me, but I don’t argue. “And Fabithe?”
“That’s a Western word. Not from the old language. But Morani means dark knife …”
So that’s why Ifor calls him that. I assumed he was being melodramatic.
“… and the knife is the symbol of Earth. See?”
She tilts her tray towards me. As she said, among the objects it contains are a wooden knife and a long-stemmed cup with a square bowl that appears to be made out of the same dark metal as the Iron Fortress. There’s also a stone ring and a three-cornered mirror that reminds me uncomfortably of my own triangle of glass. These objects are made out of the same materials as the four castles of Castellany: each associated with one of the elements, and one of the gods. It always comes back to them, doesn’t it?
“And what does your name mean?” I ask. “As the fifth? Avatar of the One himself? What role do you play in this ceremony?”
My voice was a little snarky, but she only smiles at me. “Luthan means the power of light.”
In the clearing outside the house, Isidor has organised the Blades into a wide circle. Several of them hold glowing lanterns: not the orange of fire, or blue like Fabithe’s old moon-lantern, but a whitish yellow. Isidor himself is standing inside the circle, with Oriana a quarter-turn round from him – as if they’ve started to form a second, smaller circle of their own. Luthan directs Toralé to stand opposite Isidor, and me opposite Oriana; then she hands each of us an object to hold before taking her place in the middle. This arrangement reminds me of something … yes. The pattern of the standing stones at Spirits’ Rise.
I look down at the object in my hands, and see my own face looking back. She gave me the mirror. Why am I not surprised that she gave me the mirror?
Luthan takes a candle from the tray at her feet and leaves the circle to light it from one of the lanterns, before returning to stand in the centre, facing Toralé. North? I think that’s north.
“Ekkaté the Builder, lord of Fire, bless us with your compassion and grant us love.” She places the lit candle carefully inside the square bowl of the cup in Toralé’s hands. The warm light plays softly over his face; he grips the stem of the chalice harder, looking determined. Luthan picks up another item from the tray before turning to face east.
“Atchika the Healer, lady of Water, bless us with your forgiveness and grant us peace.” She gestures to Oriana to hold out the stone ring, before pouring water through it from a small jug. And why is the ring and not the cup the symbol of water, when a cup can actually hold water? Where did these symbols come from? Who made them?
“Montarlu the Warrior, lord of Earth, bless us with your strength and grant us joy.” Isidor needs no prompting to follow the ritual; he lifts the knife high into the air, then drives it into the soil at his feet. And now Luthan is facing me.
“Idoranti the Seer, lady of Air, whose power we celebrate today. We welcome you from your gentlest breeze to your fiercest gale. Bless us with your infinite understanding and grant us the freedom to follow our own paths.” Luthan indicates that I should raise the mirror. As soon as I do so, a real gust of wind ripples around the clearing. I didn’t know what to expect as a representation of air, but it wasn’t that.
“Qaemantono the Nameless One, first of all mages …” But I miss the next part of the ceremony, because I’m trying to work out why these titles sound so familiar. And then, as Luthan walks clockwise around the circle, shedding a single drop of blood in front of each of us, I have it. They’re what Ifor calls us. Not only that, but we’ve all taken the correct places around the circle to correspond with the names he gives us, even down to Isidor in Fabithe’s place.
Following in the footsteps of the gods. It seems undeniable.
I don’t mention it to anyone else. I try to avoid talking about what I see through Ifor’s eyes, if I can help it. Yet after the ceremony, while we’re helping ourselves to yet more food, Oriana asks me, “Did you recognise the titles?”
I nearly choke. “Sorry?”
“The Warrior, the Seer … they are all the names of playing cards.”
“Playing cards?” I repeat blankly.
“Fabithe taught me to play, a little, while he was recuperating in the watchtower. In each suit there are nine number cards, five ruling cards and a trump. The suits match the symbolic tools that we used in the ritual, and their ruling cards are named for the gods.” She is animated with discovery. “I never knew that before. I was only ever taught about Atchika.”
I can’t decide which question to ask first. Finally, I go for, “Fabithe taught you to play cards?”
“Yes.”
“He carried a pack of cards with him through everything?”
“One must always carry the tools of one’s trade,” she tells me, eyes dancing. I’ve no doubt it’s a direct quote. “He taught me fola’po. You need five players, so he took four of the hands.” The smile in her eyes reaches her lips: the recollection of some private joke. “He pretended to be various people he has played cards with in the past. The memorable ones, he said. They were all remarkably bad at strategy, anyway.”
I try, and fail completely, to imagine Fabithe entertaining Oriana with a series of silly characters. Yet the amusement in her face is clear. Neutrally, I say, “Fabithe seems to like teaching you things.”
“He said I was a fast learner. And better at fola’po than most of the arrogant numbskulls he had met. But then, I did have a tactics tutor, growing up.”
Sometimes I forget – unfairly – that Oriana was given an extensive education in the subjects that were considered necessary for the future ruler of a small kingdom. Ifor may expect me to think like a Darklight, but I’m not the one who learned strategy and politics for years and years … that I can remember.
“I taught him things, too,” Oriana adds. “A few herbal remedies that might be useful on the road. He really should not rely so much on darkroot.”
“Hmm.” With a vast and heroic effort, I restrain myself from revisiting our conversation of a few nights ago, despite the clear affection in her voice. Instead, I venture, “So, these cards. They’re used in a game for five players and they have five suits and they draw on the mythology around your five gods …”
She shrugs. “Is that so surprising? Five is a sacred number in Castellany. It has been since the Five themselves walked the earth.”
“There’s also a game in the Westlands,” I say. “Ondan. It involves trying to get your five key pieces to the centre of the board without losing any. Sound familiar?”
“I suppose so, but … what are you getting at, Alyssia?”
The truth is, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s the increasing awareness I have of the pattern as a sticky web stretching across space and time, catching us in its spirals and forcing us to repeat ourselves. The same old performance. Everything comes back to the Five. Everything. They’re like a singularity, a big bang from which the world as the people of Endarion know it was born and before which nothing of any relevance existed. And sure, religion is like that. It divides the world into a before and an after. But then, why does the after contain us? Why the requirement for the same five ordinary people to follow in the footsteps of the gods over and over and over again? It would maybe make sense if different people were called to it each time. An every Age has its heroes sort of thing. But instead, it’s just us. Trapped in this endless loop, facing an enemy who remembers every single time we’ve done it before. Why?
“I don’t know,” I say aloud, answering both Oriana’s question and my own. “But it feels like there’s more going on here than any of us understand. Even Luthan.”
Though maybe not Ifor, I add silently. Because if anyone knows not only what’s happening but why, he does.
Rys returns before the light in the room has fully faded, bringing with him a scattering of coloured powder and the scent of flowers. He looks from Fabithe to the half-empty bottle on the table, and his eyebrows draw together. “Why are you sitting here in the dark, Morani? You should have called for someone to light the fire.”
“It’s Fabithe. And I’m perfectly capable of lighting my own fire.”
“Then may I sit with you?”
Fabithe hesitates – but he’s been alone all day. Maybe it would be nice to have someone to talk to.
“Help yourself to a drink,” he says, waving a hand at the apple brandy, before turning his attention to the fireplace. By the time he’s kindled the flames and retaken his own seat, Rys has settled into the second armchair. Firelight glints off the liberal dusting of turquoise and pink in his hair.
“To those we have lost,” he says, raising his cup.
Fabithe’s hand tightens on his own drink. He’d forgotten this part of the day: the quiet, solemn remembrance of loved ones, whether dead or merely far away. It’s not as if he’s had anyone to remember, since he left. Only people to forget.
“To our father Petros and our mother Iothina,” Rys says. “Our aunt Simne and our uncle Dorus. I am thankful for their lives.”
“To my real parents,” Fabithe throws in. Something hot and painful was awoken in him by the word our, and he doesn’t want to stop to examine it too closely. “Whoever they were.” He swallows his last mouthful of liquor, replacing the cup on the table with a little more force than is strictly necessary. “You should go to bed.”
“Morani …”
“What?”
“Please allow me to stay awhile. I did not have to name you among the lost this year. That in itself is a miracle to be thankful for.”
Fabithe sinks back in his chair, though he can’t help rolling his eyes. “I doubt Petros ever let you do it before.”
“Nevertheless, I always did. Even if it was only to myself.” With a relieved smile, Rys tops up both their cups.
“Did your family enjoy the day?” Fabithe asks. He meant it as a casual question, but it somehow came out sharp with implications. Your family, of which I’m not a part. Or perhaps, The day that I couldn’t celebrate, because of you. Either way, Rys throws him a wary glance before replying.
“It was very agreeable.”
“Agreeable? Is that it?”
“No.” Rys takes a liberal gulp of brandy. “In truth, Morani, it was far more complicated than that. But I was not sure you would want to hear about it.”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“All right. Well … it was my first festival as king, and that was hard. Even while Father was alive, I helped with the overseeing of such events, but he was the figurehead. Everything ultimately rested on his shoulders. And now it rests on mine.”
He drinks again.
“I wanted to spend the day with Charnu. He is two now, more than a baby. Old enough to take part properly. And, indeed, we were together awhile. He loved the colours.” A smile flashes across his face and is gone. “But as little as I saw him before my coronation, I see him even less now. He has nursemaids, they tell me. I do not need to concern myself with his wellbeing. And Nelle …”
“You rarely speak of her,” Fabithe observes. “Is that because you fear my reaction, or because she’s a subject you prefer to avoid?”
Rys’s shoulders slump in a sigh. “Perhaps both. I know she does not love me, and though it hurts, I cannot blame her for it.”
That’s a surprise – not the lack of love, but the fact that Rys cares about its absence. Everything Fabithe heard from Donalle implied an unhappy marriage, and what little Rys has said previously on the subject of his wife seemed to confirm the same: two people without much respect for each other, bound together only by their child and the requirement to keep up appearances. It’s not as if they even share a bedroom. Nor does Rys apparently trust her enough to tell her of Morani’s return. But then, perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps Morani’s ghost has stood between them, all these years.
“I am no better a husband than I am a king or a father,” Rys adds. “I want to be better at all three, but the truth is, I have very little to go on.”
It’s the closest he’s ever come to criticising Petros, and it hits Fabithe uncomfortably hard. He’s always assumed that his adoptive father failed him primarily because he was adopted – that Petros viewed as him as lesser, disposable, and that’s why events unfolded as they did. Yet now it’s easy to see that even as a full-blooded Kingswood son, Rys needed things from his father that he didn’t get. And that’s how I end up feeling sympathy for a man who tried to kill me.
“Can’t help you with any of that, I’m afraid,” he says flippantly, trying to hide it. “Never having been a king, a husband or a father.”
“All right,” Rys says. “But you must have been something to someone.”
“What?”
“It has been nearly five years. You must have left someone behind, to come here.”
Fabithe opens his mouth to deny it. I’ve been alone since I was fourteen, he wants to say. I lost any chance at friendship or family along with my place in the world. When you tried to take my life, you took everything.
But he can’t. Because it’s not true. Because Oriana –
“There is someone!” Rys crows. “I can see it in your face.”
Fabithe shoots him a quelling glare. “We’re not talking about this.”
“Please, Morani. Sorry. Fabithe. You can tell me.”
He hesitates – yet he’s more moved than he ought to be by the fact that Rys just used his name. Probably for the same reason that the room appears to be tilting gently around him. With a scowl, he pushes away his cup of apple brandy.
“So?” Rys prompts him. “You found someone to warm your bed?”
Unbidden, Fabithe is overwhelmed by memories: her hand in his. The glint of firelight in her hair. The gentle curve of her smile. And with them comes a longing so intense that he has to pause to breathe.
“She – ” Ridiculously, his voice cracks. Has coming here stripped him of all self-control? He shakes his head. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what?”
“I … I don’t know. Not … physical.” Why am I talking about this? With another accusing glance at his drink, he falls back on the safe explanation. “We’re friends.”
“Mmhm.” The soft, barely inflected sound is irritatingly familiar. It’s a noise Rys used to make whenever Morani tried to deny something they both knew was true, and it never failed to elicit an increasingly elaborate series of justifications – the kind that inevitably led to a confession, because they were guaranteed to tangle themselves in knots. But these days I have more sense than to fall into the trap, Fabithe tells himself. He takes a large sip of brandy and says nothing.
“Friends, then,” Rys says, conceding the point. “So what is she like?”
Brave. Kind. Beautiful. None of that is enough. True, but too generic to encompass even half the meaning that Oriana holds for him. Fabithe struggles with it till an almost forgotten memory drops into his head, and with it the words he needs.
“Remember when we were children and you told me the story of Jenne the Bright? The prince who had the power to call a glimmer of dawn from the darkest night?”
Rys nods, though his expression says that he’s not the faintest idea where this is going. Fabithe stumbles over himself to explain.
“She – she brings light. No matter what happens to her, she believes in something better. A truth that can’t be destroyed. She looks at someone like me and sees not darkness, but …” Hope. Kindness. Love. Once again the words twist through his mind. This time, he almost understands their worth.
“People can’t change you,” he says. “But perhaps they can make you want to be the best possible version of yourself.”
“Perhaps,” Rys agrees. “Though not normally when they are just friends.”
“Not just friends. That makes it sound like it’s not important. I care for her more than anyone else in the world.”
“Mmhm.”
“Stop doing that! It doesn’t matter how I feel about her. She’s not – ” Fabithe stops, far too late. Fell right into that one. In a mumble, he finishes, “Available.”
“She is married?”
“No. Well, yes, she is, but it’s not that. Or rather, it is in a way …” Briefly, he closes his eyes. I really shouldn’t have drunk so much brandy.
“Come on. Spit it out. Who is she?”
“Oriana Bluepeace.”
“The Sapphire girl? But I thought she married – ” Rys cuts off abruptly, his expression one of dawning horror. His sentence ends in a whisper. “The northern ambassador.”
Of course, he would know. Fabithe had forgotten how easily news passes among the wealthy. How they don’t have to scrabble around eavesdropping on endless boring conversations in search of a kernel of information. The marriage between Oriana and Ifor would have been known to the ruling classes of Endarion, and thoroughly analysed for its political implications, long before it happened.
“I do not understand,” Rys says. “How can you possibly be a friend of his wife?”
Because somehow I always succeed in complicating my own life as much as possible. Fabithe leans forward, pressing the heels of his palms against his forehead. “Long story.”
“But surely, if she belongs to Ifor – ”
That brings his head up again sharply. “She doesn’t belong to anyone. She’s not an object.”
“No. Of course. But if she is married to him – ”
“She owes him about as much respect as I do.”
Rys lifts both hands, palms out, in a gesture of surrender. Yet his expression still holds curiosity, and after a moment he succumbs to it. “Then if you are not constrained by her marriage, what is holding you back? Because clearly you want more from her than friendship. Does she not feel the same way?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
“You …” Rys frowns. “Are you saying you have not asked her?”
“I can’t.”
“Why on earth not?”
It wouldn’t be fair. It’s not so long ago that she felt threatened by me. She needs more time to heal. The words are there, but they feel like an excuse. He can imagine what Alyssia would say to it: you have no right to make that decision for her.
I’ve no idea how to be what she needs, he tries instead. I’ve lived by violence too long. What do I know about patience and kindness? Yet that’s also an excuse. He could step up for her, he knows he could. He could be the person she makes him want to be.
No … in reality, the truth is dauntingly simple in its cowardice.
“I’m afraid,” he admits. “As long as I keep quiet, I can tell myself it’ll happen someday. Once I confess how I feel, it’s out of my hands. And the thought of losing her completely …”
He stops. He’s talking far too much. Despite everything, his old instincts have kicked in: this is your big brother, you can tell him anything. But he’s made himself vulnerable enough already without emptying the last corners of his heart for Rys to see.
“You should go to bed,” he says again, wishing he’d made Rys go the first time he said it and not allowed himself to be pulled into this conversation in the first place. Gulping down the last of the apple brandy, though he can already tell he’ll regret it in the morning, he stands up and walks to the door that connects the receiving room to the dressing room.
“You are right,” Rys agrees, taking the hint. “It is getting late.”
He crosses the dressing room to his own door in silence. Yet on the threshold, he stops and turns. “Morani … you were never one to run from a challenge. Tell her the truth. If you are as close as you say, she deserves your honesty.”
He has a point. Yet this has already gone far deeper than Fabithe is comfortable with, so he only shrugs. “What, and defile the memory of my upbringing? C’mon, Rys, you know this. Feelings are for women and the nursery.”
He must have captured at least something of Petros’s clipped tone, because Rys grins briefly before sobering again. “And look where that got him. He killed himself rather than be honest about how he felt.”
“But – ”
“Petros taught us that being a man means anger, and pride, and silence. I do not want to teach my son those things. Because without them, I do not believe we would have lost you.”
We tear ourselves apart to prove our strength, Fabithe almost agrees. Oriana was right; she usually is. Yet he’s irritated by his brother’s hypocrisy, so instead he points out, “Easy to say. Not so easy to do. Else you’d already have taken your own advice.”
“Sorry?”
“If you care about her, talk to her. That’s the gist of it, isn’t it? And if it hurts you to believe Nelle doesn’t love you, that must mean you care about her.”
“I do,” Rys admits sheepishly, as if caring about one’s own wife is something to be ashamed of rather than, presumably, the main point of having a wife in the first place.
“Well, then. Doesn’t she deserve your honesty?”
“I …” For a long moment, he looks satisfyingly lost. But then he lifts his head, meeting Fabithe’s gaze. “Yes. She does. They both do.”
He reaches out for the sort of manly hand-clasp that’s the closest the Kingswood boys ever came to showing each other affection; it’s only once Fabithe has returned it that he realises what he’s just tacitly agreed to. Bloody Rys and his bloody willingness to admit when he’s wrong. Now he’s going to have to tell Oriana how he feels, isn’t he? It’s that or prove himself the hypocrite. The fact that Rys will never know if he did it or not is beside the point.
“Remind me never to drink with you again,” he says, though for some reason he’s smiling. “Good night, Rys.”
His brother hesitates, then nods and closes the bedroom door. Fabithe returns to the receiving room. A little powder clings to the back of the chair where Rys was sitting; he runs his fingers over it, watching the different colours sparkle in the firelight.
“I love her,” he says aloud, to the empty room. He’s never said it before. Never even allowed himself to think it. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Rys. But it’s the truth, all the same. “That’s why I’m scared. Because I love her, and no matter how she feels about that, I’m going to have to find a way to accept it.”
He sits back down in the armchair, beside the empty bottle and cups on the table, and begins the long wait for dawn.
When I open my eyes, it’s still dark. We can only have gone to bed a couple of hours ago. Yet I’m awake, fully, with no hope of getting back to sleep again. Because in my bones is a knowledge as cold and desolate as winter: this is the tenth day. At this very moment, my brother is being confirmed as Highest Lord of the Sapphire – and he wants me to know it. For the first time since this countdown began, he’s opened up to me. Because he wants me to know that at first light, he and his new army will be setting off for Emerald territory.
War is coming.