A Jewel for Royals

Kate went cold at the thought of that. “Why? Why do you want Sophia dead? Just to hurt me? Kill me instead. Please.”

Siobhan considered her. “You really would give your life for her, wouldn’t you? You’d kill for her. You’d die for her. And now none of that is enough.”

“Please, Siobhan, I’m begging you!” Kate called out.

“If you didn’t want this, you should have done as I required,” Siobhan said. “With your help, I could have set things on a path where my home would have been safe forever. Where I would have had power. Now, you have taken that away, and I need to live.”

Kate still didn’t see why that meant Sophia had to die.

“Live in my body then,” she said. “But don’t hurt Sophia. You’ve no reason to.”

“I’ve every reason,” Siobhan said. “You think masquerading as the younger sister of a ruler is enough? You think dying in a single human lifetime is enough? Your sister carries a child. A child who will rule. I will shape it as an unborn thing. I will kill her and rip the child clear. I will take it and grow with it. I will become all I need to be.”

“No,” Kate said as she realized the full horror of it. “No.”

Siobhan laughed, and there was cruelty in it. “They will kill your body when I kill Sophia,” she said. “And you will be left here, between worlds. I hope you enjoy your freedom from me, apprentice.”

She murmured words and it seemed that she faded. The image of Haxa’s cottage didn’t, though, and Kate found herself screaming as she saw her own body take a breath.

“Haxa, no, it isn’t me!” she yelled, and then tried to send the same message with her power. Nothing happened.

On the other side of that slender divide, though, plenty happened. Siobhan gasped with her lungs, opened her eyes, and sat up with Kate’s body.

“Easy, Kate,” Haxa said, not rising. “You’ve had a long ordeal.”

Kate watched her body feel around itself unsteadily, as if trying to work out where it was. To Haxa, it must have looked as though Kate was still disoriented by her experience, but Kate could see that Siobhan was testing out her limbs, working out what they could and couldn’t do.

She finally stood, rising unsteadily. Her first step had her staggering, but her second was more confident. She drew Kate’s sword, swishing it through the air as if testing the balance. Haxa looked a little worried at that, but didn’t back away. Probably she thought it was the kind of thing Kate might do to test her balance and coordination.

“Do you know where you are?” Haxa asked.

Siobhan stared over at her using Kate’s eyes. “Yes, I know.”

“And you know who I am?”

“You are the one who calls herself Haxa to try to hide her name. You are the keeper of runes, and were no foe of mine until you decided to help my apprentice.”

From where she stood trapped, Kate saw Haxa’s expression shift to one of horror.

“You aren’t Kate.”

“No,” Siobhan said, “I’m not.”

She moved then, with all the speed and power of Kate’s body, lunging with the light sword so that it was barely more than a flicker as it lanced into Haxa’s chest. It protruded from the other side, transfixing her.

“The problem with names,” Siobhan said, “is that they only work when you have breath to use them. You shouldn’t have stood against me, rune witch.”

She let Haxa fall, and then looked up, as if knowing where Kate’s vantage point lay.

“She died because of you. Sophia will die because of you. Her child, and this kingdom, will be mine because of you. I want you to think about that, Kate. Think about it when the bubble fades and your fears come for you.”

She waved a hand, and the image faded. Kate threw herself at the bubble, trying to get to her, trying to get out of there and find a way to stop Siobhan.

She paused as things around her shifted, becoming a kind of gray, misty landscape now that Siobhan wasn’t shaping it to fool her. There was a faint glimmer of silver in the distance that might have been the safe path, but it was so far away it might as well not have been there.

Figures started to come from the mist. Kate recognized the faces of people she’d killed: nuns and soldiers, Lord Cranston’s training master and the Master of Crows’ men. She knew they were just images rather than ghosts, but that did nothing to reduce the fear that threaded through her, making her hand shake and the sword she carried seem useless.

Gertrude Illiard was there again, holding a pillow.

“I’m going to be first,” she promised. “I’m going to smother you as you smothered me, but you won’t die. Not here. No matter what we do to you, you won’t die, even if you beg for it.”

Kate looked around at them, and each of them held some kind of implement, whether it was a knife or a whip, a sword or a strangling rope. Each of them seemed to hunger with the need to hurt her, and Kate knew that they would fall upon her without mercy as soon as they could.

She could see the shield fading now, becoming more translucent. Kate gripped her sword tighter and braced herself for what was going to come.

CHAPTER THREE

Emeline followed Asha, Vincente, and the others across the moors beyond Strand, keeping hold of Cora’s forearm so that they wouldn’t lose one another in the mists that rose up off the moors.

“We did it,” Emeline said. “We found Stonehome.”

“I think Stonehome found us,” Cora pointed out.

That was a fair point, given that the place’s inhabitants had rescued them from execution. Emeline could still remember the burning heat of the pyres if she closed her eyes, the acrid stink of the smoke. She didn’t want to.

“Also,” Cora said, “I think that to find somewhere, you have to be able to see it.”

I like your pet, Asha sent back, ahead of them. Does she always talk this much?

The woman who seemed to be one of Stonehome’s leaders strode forward, her long coat trailing, her broad hat keeping off the damp.

She isn’t my pet, Emeline sent over to her. She thought about saying it aloud for Cora’s sake, but it was for her sake that she didn’t.

Why else would someone keep one of the Normal around? Asha asked.

“Ignore Asha,” Vincente said, aloud. He was tall enough to loom over them, but in spite of that, and the cleaver-like blade he carried, he seemed the friendlier of the two. “She has trouble believing that those without our gifts can be part of our community. Thankfully, not all of us feel that way. As for the mist, it is one of our protections. Those who seek Stonehome to harm it wander without finding it. They become lost.”

“And we can hunt the ones who came to hurt us,” Asha said, with a smile that wasn’t entirely reassuring. “Still, we’re nearly there. It will lift soon.”

It did, and it was like stepping onto a broad island hemmed in by the mist, the land rising up out of it in a broad expanse that was easily bigger than Ashton had been. Not that it was packed with houses the way the city was. Instead, most of it seemed to be grazing land, or plots where people were working to grow vegetables. Within that perimeter of growing land sat a dry stone wall as high as someone’s shoulder, sitting in front of a ditch in a way that made it into a defensive structure rather than just a marker. Emeline felt a faint flicker of power and wondered if there was more to it than that.

Within it, there sat a series of stone and peat houses: low cottages with peat and turf roofs, round houses that looked as though they had been there forever. At the heart of it was a stone circle similar to the others on the plain, except that this was larger, and filled with people.

They’d found Stonehome at last.

“Come on,” Asha said, walking briskly toward it. “We’ll get you settled in. I’ll make sure no one mistakes you for an invader and kills you.”

Emeline watched her, then looked over to Vincente.

“Is she always like this?” she asked.

“Usually she’s worse,” Vincente said. “But she helps to protect us. Come on, you should both see your new home.”

They went down toward the stone-built village, the others following in their wake or breaking off to run to the fields to talk to friends.

“This seems such a beautiful place,” Cora said. Emeline was glad she liked it. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if her friend had decided that Stonehome wasn’t the sanctuary she had been hoping for.

“It is,” Vincente agreed. “I am not sure who founded it, but it quickly became a place for those like us.”

“Those with powers,” Emeline said.

Vincente shrugged. “That is what Asha says. Personally, I prefer to think of it as a place for all the dispossessed. You are both welcome here.”

“As simply as that?” Cora asked.

Emeline guessed that her suspicions had a lot to do with the things they’d encountered on the road. It had seemed that almost everyone they’d met had been determined to rob them, enslave them, or worse. She had to admit that she might have shared a lot of them, except that these were people like her in so many ways. She wanted to be able to trust them.

“Your friend’s powers make it obvious that she is one of us, while you… you were one of the indentured?”

Cora nodded.

“I know what that was like,” Vincente said. “I grew up in a place where they told me I had to pay for my freedom. So did Asha. She paid for it in blood. It is why she is careful about trusting others.”

Emeline found herself thinking about Kate at that. She wondered what had become of Sophia’s sister. Had she managed to find Sophia? Was she on the way to Stonehome too, or trying to find her way to Ishjemme to be with her? There was no way of knowing, but Emeline could hope.

They went down into the village, following Vincente. At first glance, it might have seemed like just a normal village, but as she looked closer, Emeline could see the differences. She could see the runes and spell marks worked into the stone and wood of the buildings, could feel the pressure of dozens of people with a talent for magic in the same space.

“It’s so quiet here,” Cora said.

It might have seemed quiet to her, but to Emeline, the air was alive with chatter as people communicated mind to mind. It seemed to be as common as talking aloud here, perhaps more so.

There were other things too. She had already seen what the healer, Tabor, could do, but there were those who were using other talents. One boy seemed to be playing a game of cup and ball without touching it. A man was sparking lights in glass jars, but there seemed to be no kindling involved. There was even a smith working without fire, the metal seeming to respond to his touch like a living thing.

“We all have our gifts,” Vincente said. “We have collected knowledge, so that we can help those with power to express them as much as they can.”

“You’d have liked our friend Sophia,” Cora said. “She seemed to have all kinds of powers.”

“Truly powerful individuals are rare,” Vincente said. “The ones who seem strongest are often the most limited.”

“And yet you manage to summon a mist that spreads for miles around,” Emeline pointed out. She knew that took more than a limited stock of power. Far more.

“We do that together,” Vincente said. “If you stay, you will probably contribute to it, Emeline.”

He gestured to the circle at the heart of the village, where figures sat on stone seats. Emeline could feel the crackle of power there, even if it seemed that they were doing nothing more strenuous than staring. As she watched, one of them rose, looking exhausted, and another villager moved in to take their place.

Emeline hadn’t thought of that. The most powerful of them got their power by channeling energy from other places. She’d heard of witches stealing people’s lives away, while Sophia seemed to gain power from the land itself. That even made sense, given who she was. This, though… this was a whole village of those with power channeling it together to become more than the sum of their parts. How much power would they be able to generate like that?

“Look, Cora,” she said, pointing. “They’re protecting the whole village.”

Cora stared at it. “That’s… can anyone do that?”

“Anyone with a spark of power,” Vincente said. “If someone normal were to do it, either nothing would happen, or…”

“Or?” Emeline asked.

“Their life would be sucked out. It is not safe to try.”

Emeline could see Cora’s discomfort at that, but it didn’t seem to last. She was too busy looking around at the village as if trying to understand how it all worked.

“Come,” Vincente said. “There’s an empty house this way.”

He led the way to a stone-walled cottage that wasn’t very big, but still seemed more than big enough for the two of them. Its door creaked as Vincente opened it, but Emeline guessed that could be fixed. If she could learn to guide a boat or a wagon, she could learn to fix a door.

“What will we do here?” Cora asked.

Vincente smiled at that. “You’ll live. Our farms bring in enough food, and we share it with anyone who helps work in the village. People contribute whatever they’re suited to contribute. Those who can work metal or wood do it to build or to sell. Those who can fight work to protect the village, or hunt. We find a use for any talent.”

“I’ve spent my life applying makeup to nobles while they prepare for parties,” Cora said.

Vincente shrugged. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find something. And there are celebrations here too. You’ll find a way to fit in.”

“And what if we wanted to leave?” Cora asked.

Emeline looked around. “Why would anyone want to leave? You don’t want to, do you?”

She did the unthinkable then, and delved into her friend’s mind without asking. She could feel the doubts there, but also the hope that this would be all right. Cora wanted to be able to stay. She just didn’t want to feel like a caged animal. She didn’t want to be trapped again. Emeline could understand that, but even so, she relaxed. Cora was going to stay.

“I don’t,” Cora said, “but… I need to know that this isn’t all some trick, or some prison. I need to know that I’m not indentured again in all but name.”

“You aren’t,” Vincente said. “We hope that you will stay, but if you choose to leave, we only ask that you keep our secrets. Those secrets protect Stonehome, more than the mist, more than our warriors. Now, I shall leave you to settle in. When you are ready, come to the roundhouse at the heart of the village. Flora runs the eating hall there, and there will be food for both of you.”

He left, which meant that Emeline and Cora were able to look around their new home.

“It’s small,” Emeline said. “I know you used to live in a palace.”

“I used to live in whatever corner of a palace I could find to sleep in,” Cora pointed out. “Compared to a store cupboard or an empty niche, this is huge. It will need work though.”

“We can work,” Emeline said, already looking around to see the possibilities. “We crossed half of the kingdom. We can make a cottage better to live in.”

“Do you think Kate or Sophia will ever come here?” Cora asked.

Emeline had been asking herself almost the same question. “I think Sophia is going to be busy in Ishjemme,” she said. “With luck, she actually found her family.”

“And you found yours, kind of,” Cora said.

That was true. The people out there might not have truly been her kin, but they felt like it. They had experienced the same hatred out in the world, the same need to hide. And now, they were there for one another. It was as close to a definition of family as Emeline had found.

It made Cora family too. Emeline didn’t want her to forget that.

Emeline hugged her. “This can be a family for both of us, I think. It’s a place we can both be free. It’s a place where we can both be safe.”

“I like the idea of being safe,” Cora said.

“I like the idea of not having to walk across the kingdom hunting for this place anymore,” Emeline replied. She’d had enough of being on the road by now. She looked up. “We have a roof.”

After so long on the road, even that seemed like a luxury.

“We have a roof,” Cora agreed. “And a family.”

It felt strange to be able to say it after so long. It was enough. More than enough.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg sat in her receiving rooms and struggled to contain the fury that threatened to consume her. Fury at the embarrassment of the last day or so, fury at the way her body was betraying her, leaving her to cough blood into a lace handkerchief even now. Above all, fury at sons who would not do as they were told.

“Prince Rupert, your majesty,” a servant announced, as her eldest son flounced into the receiving chamber, looking for all the world as though he expected praise for all that he had done.

“Congratulating me on my victory, Mother?” Rupert said.

The Dowager adopted her iciest tone. It was the only thing keeping her from shouting right then. “It is customary to bow.”

That, at least, was enough to stop Rupert in his tracks, staring at her with a mixture of shock and anger before he essayed a brief bow. Good, let him remember that she still ruled here. He seemed to have forgotten it thoroughly enough in the past days.

“So, you want me to congratulate you, do you?” the Dowager asked.

“I won!” Rupert insisted. “I pushed back the invasion. I saved the kingdom.”

He made it sound as if he were a knight riding back from some great quest in the old days. Well, days like that were long past.

“By following your own reckless plan rather than the one that was agreed,” the Dowager said.

“It worked!”

The Dowager made an effort to contain her temper, at least for now. It was growing harder by the second, though.

“And you believe that the strategy I chose would not have worked?” she demanded. “You think that they would not have broken against our defenses? You think I should be proud of the slaughter you inflicted?”

“A slaughter of enemies, and of those who would not fight them,” Rupert countered. “Do you think I haven’t heard the stories of the things you’ve done, Mother? Of the killings of the nobles who supported the Danses? Of your agreement to let the Masked Goddess’s church kill any they deemed evil?”

She would not let her son compare those things. She would not go over the hard necessities of the past with a boy who had been no more than a babe in arms for even the most recent of them.

“Those were different,” she said. “We had no better options.”

“We had no better options here,” Rupert snapped.

“We had an option that didn’t involve the slaughter of our people,” the Dowager replied, with just as much heat in her tone. “That didn’t involve the destruction of some of the kingdom’s most valuable farmland. You pushed the New Army back, but our plan could have crushed it.”

“Sebastian’s plan was a foolish one, as you would have seen if you weren’t so blind to his faults.”

Which brought the Dowager to the second reason for her anger. The greater one, and the one that she’d been holding back only because she didn’t trust herself not to explode with it.

“Where is your brother, Rupert?” she asked.

He tried for innocence. He should have realized by now that it didn’t work with her.

“How would I know, Mother?”

“Rupert, Sebastian was last seen at the docks, trying to grab a ship to Ishjemme. You arrived personally to grab him. Do you think I don’t have spies?”

She watched him trying to work out what to say next. He’d done this ever since he was a boy, trying to find the form of words that would let him cheat the world into the shape he wanted.

“Sebastian is in a safe place,” Rupert said.

“Meaning that you have imprisoned him, your own brother. You have no right to do that, Rupert.” A coughing fit took some of the punch from her words. She ignored the fresh blood.

“I’d have thought you’d be happy, Mother,” he said. “He was, after all, trying to flee the kingdom after running out of the marriage you arranged.”

That was true, but it didn’t change anything. “If I wanted Sebastian stopped, I would have ordered it,” she said. “You will release him at once.”

“As you say, Mother,” Rupert said, and again the Dowager had the feeling that he was anything but sincere.

“Rupert, let me be clear about this. Your actions today have placed all of us in great danger. Ordering the army around as you will? Imprisoning the heir to the throne without authority? What do you think that will look like to the Assembly of Nobles?”

“Damn them!” Rupert said, the words bursting out. “I have enough of them for this.”

“You can’t afford to damn them,” the Dowager said. “The civil wars taught us that. We must work with them. And the fact that you talk as if you own a faction of them worries me, Rupert. You need to learn your place.”

She could see his anger now, no longer disguised as it had been.

“My place is as your heir,” he said.

“Sebastian’s place is as my heir,” the Dowager shot back. “Yours… the mountain lands require a governor to limit their raids southward. Perhaps life among the shepherds and the farmers will teach you humility. Or perhaps not, and at least you will be far enough away from here for me to forget my anger with you.”

“You can’t – ”

“I can,” the Dowager snapped back. “And just for arguing, it will not be the mountain lands, and you will not be a governor. You will go to the Near Colonies, where you will act as an assistant to my envoy there. He will provide regular reports on you, and you will not return until I deem you ready.”

“Mother…” Rupert began.

The Dowager fixed him in place with a look. She could still do that, even if her body was crumbling.

“Speak again, and you will be a clerk in the Far Colonies,” she snapped. “Now get out, and I expect to see Sebastian here by the end of the day. He is my heir, Rupert. Do not forget that.”

“Trust me, Mother,” Rupert said as he left. “I have not.”

The Dowager waited until he was gone, then snapped her fingers at the nearest servant.

“There is still one more annoyance to be dealt with. Bring me Milady d’Angelica, then leave.”

***

Angelica was still wearing her wedding dress when the guard came to her, summoning her to speak with the queen. He gave her no time to change, but merely escorted her briskly to her receiving chambers.

To Angelica, the old woman looked worn paper thin. Perhaps she would die soon. Just the thought of that had Angelica hoping that Sebastian would be found quickly, and made to go through with the wedding. There was too much at stake for it not to happen, in spite of the betrayal she currently felt at him running away.

She bobbed into a curtsey, then knelt as she felt the weight of the Dowager’s gaze upon her. The old woman rose from her seat unsteadily, only emphasizing the difference in their positions.

“Explain to me,” the Dowager said, “why I am not currently congratulating you on your wedding to my son.”

Angelica dared to look up at her. “Sebastian ran. How was I to know that he would run?”

“Because you are not supposed to be stupid,” the Dowager retorted.

Angelica felt a thrill of anger at that. This old woman loved playing games with her, seeing how far she could push. Soon, though, she would be in a position where she didn’t need the old woman’s approval.

“I took every step I could,” Angelica said. “I seduced Sebastian.”

“Not thoroughly enough!” the Dowager shouted, stepping forward to slap Angelica.

Angelica half rose, then felt strong hands pushing her down again. The guard had remained standing behind her, just a reminder of how helpless she was here. For the first time there, Angelica felt afraid.

“If you had seduced my son completely, he wouldn’t have been trying to get away from here, to Ishjemme,” the Dowager said, in a calmer tone. “What is in Ishjemme, Angelica?”

Angelica swallowed, answering out of reflex. “Sophia is.”

That did nothing but stoke the other woman’s anger.

“So my son was doing exactly what I told you to stop him from doing,” the Dowager said. “I told you that the whole point of your continued existence was to prevent him from marrying that girl.”

“You didn’t tell me that she was the oldest daughter of the Danses,” Angelica said, “or that they’re claiming her as the rightful ruler of this kingdom.”