The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (23 page)

Rayfe took my hand and led me forward. “Mother, may I present my wife and our new queen, Andromeda.”

Panic seized my stomach and I fought the urge to smooth back my hair. The tall woman raised winged eyebrows that matched Rayfe’s, then studied me with hawklike dark-blue eyes. I should have seen the resemblance immediately, even with her black hair twisted in complex braids. I had no idea how to address her. I wanted to stomp on Rayfe’s instep for his careless failure to warn me.

“Welcome home, Salena’s daughter.” She hadn’t liked Rayfe’s introduction. As mother of the king, wasn’t she queen? The woman’s eyes rested on my throat, and I wondered if the bruise showed after all. “Has my son treated you as he should?”

The question seemed to carry layers of meaning, and I floundered, searching for the right answer. Amelia would flutter her lashes and be charming. Ursula would call the question and seek the upper hand.

“Rayfe and I are still learning how to treat each other,” I answered. “All of this has not been easy for either of us, I think.”

A half smile quirked her lips, and I thought that might be approval warming her eyes. She flicked a glance at Rayfe.

“I can see how you knew her immediately. She is very like Salena. Trinor?” A young man came forward with a tray of sparkling glasses containing a golden liquid with tiny bubbles rising. She took two glasses, pressed one into my hand, and gave Rayfe the other. The other men and women came forward with polite smiles and raised glasses, following the dark-haired lady’s lead.

“To my son, my king, and his bride,” she intoned, as if giving a blessing.

“To the safety and prosperity of Annfwn and all the Tala,” Rayfe replied gravely.

We sipped from the glasses and the liquid burst on my tongue, icy cold and sparkling. Rayfe’s mother—I wished I knew what to call her—asked us all to sit, and plates were passed. She sat at the head of the table, Rayfe at her right hand and I at her left. Rayfe stretched out long legs under the table and caught my ankles between them, giving me a little squeeze and a smile. I raised an eyebrow at him. We would talk later.

I was introduced to the others—names only, no titles or relationships, so I still wasn’t sure who everyone was—then heaped my plate, plowing into the delicious food with enthusiasm and ignoring Rayfe’s amused smile. I listened while Rayfe talked with his mother in low tones and the others conversed among themselves, making the polite court conversation that must be universal.

“How do you like Annfwn, Princess Andromeda?” asked the cool brunette, Payla, who sat opposite me.

“This cliff city is amazing. I’ve never read even a whisper about it. It’s so well hidden, I didn’t see it until we came out of the forest and around that last bend.”

“You did not blindfold Andromeda?” Rayfe’s mother looked aghast.

He caught my gaze with sober dark-blue eyes. “No, Mother. She is Tala and asked to be treated as such. Our queen should not be treated like a foreigner or a hostage.”

“Do you
know
she’s truly one of us, then?” Payla inquired, looking at me with sharp light-blue eyes. “She looks . . . vague.”

“We’ve been busy,” Rayfe replied, “and I thought it unwise to discuss any of our secrets outside of Annfwn’s veil.”

“Still—” she continued, but the man beside her put a hand on her arm.

“We will know soon enough,” Rayfe’s mother put in, her voice mild while she sipped the sparkling wine, but her dark gaze pinned the brunette to her chair. “I did not invite you to my new daughter’s welcoming, Payla, to stir doubts in her heart.”

Payla flushed, ducked her head to me “My apologies—I did not mean . . .”

“More wine?” Trinor put in with a dazzling smile, refilling my glass. “If the lovely Andromeda has been tormented with Rayfe’s dour company these last days, I’m sure she needs plenty of wine, food, and pleasant conversation. Tell me, lady, did he remember to feed you, or did he expect you to gnaw on jerky like his wolfhounds?”

A laugh burst out of me at that, and Rayfe flashed the man a sour look.

“How did you know?” I sipped the deliciously cold wine and exchanged grins with young Trinor.

“We weren’t exactly on a pleasure excursion,” Rayfe growled, but he handed me a platter of pastries, as if to make up for it. “And she hasn’t starved on the journey here.”

“There, there, darling.” Rayfe’s mother patted his hand and winked at me. “I’m sure you at least fed her breakfast after your overnight stops.”

I focused on breaking open the pastry I’d chosen, relishing the warm aroma of almonds that wafted up, but the giggles started breaking free by the time Rayfe’s mother mentioned breakfast. I tried to hold them back, but they exploded in an unladylike snort. I looked up to see Rayfe watching me with that eyebrow raised. Trinor fell back, belly laughing, and Payla pressed fingers to her lips to keep from laughing along.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped between laughs, “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“The wine.” Rayfe held up his glass to the sun. “It promotes frivolity.” He drank it down, grinned, and held it out to Trinor for a refill, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you laugh.”

He stood with his full glass, sparkling-blue gaze on mine. “To my new and lasting queen, Andromeda.” He threw the title out like a challenge. “May our marriage be full of laughter, sunny afternoons, and many, many good meals.”

R
ayfe’s mother sent him off after we finished the delightful lunch, declaring that he had things to take care of and that she would settle her new daughter in.

I confess, it warmed me in a way I had never expected, that she called me “daughter,” as if I’d been unexpectedly un-orphaned. Rayfe’s mother led me to the rooms he’d spoken of. They were on the topmost floor, which made me smile, with windows that looked out in three directions, over sea and forest, and wide seats tucked into the nooks beneath to allow one to sit and look. None faced east, I realized. Ordnung was literally behind me, with mountain ranges between.

“These were Salena’s rooms.” Rayfe’s mother stood in the center of the sitting chamber, surveying it. A ghost of something crossed her face.

“Did you know my mother?”

She gave me her sharp look. “Not many people did.”

“So Rayfe told me.”

“Did he, now?” She folded her arms, strolled around the rooms. “I had her things—the few she left behind—put here and there. In case you wanted to see them. Anything you don’t wish to keep, simply set outside your doors and it will be taken away.”

“Thank you.” There were books on the shelves and small objects that bore further scrutiny. They didn’t look like the sorts of things she’d left behind at Ordnung, but it seemed, the more I learned about her, that she hadn’t been the same person by that time.

“I did know her.” Rayfe’s mother sighed, blowing out a long breath and staring out at the sea. “I miss her still. When news of her death came, I—” She shook her head. “It’s been nearly twenty years, more than that, since I last saw her, and I still feel the ache of her absence.”

“Me, too,” I whispered.

She glanced at me and held out a long-fingered hand, Rayfe’s gesture. “Forgive me. Of course you must miss her far more.”

She pulled me down onto the window seat, tucked her feet under her, and leaned an elbow on the ledge, looking out.

“She was my friend.” She nodded at me, as if she expected me to be surprised. “We grew up in neighboring households, much farther down the coast from here. You know how it is—we were the same age and lived nearly in each other’s laps, so we became best friends.”

I did not know how that was, but I didn’t like to tell her that my childhood in Ordnung had been lacking in any way. They already seemed to think me profoundly scarred somehow. Why I felt defensive about that, I didn’t know.

“Later, when people questioned what Salena did, well, I didn’t. But no one else knew her secret sorrows.”

“Sorrows?” I echoed.

Rayfe’s mother glanced at me, a vertical line between her hawk-wing eyebrows. “You have to understand. Salena was the best of us. Beautiful, smart, witty, full of the ancient magic.”

“You make her sound like a paragon.”

“Do I?” She wrinkled her nose and laughed. “Well, she was also impatient, impossibly stubborn, and arrogant enough to decide that she knew best how to single-handedly save the Tala and Annfwn.” She waved her graceful hands in swirling arcs, announcing the feat like a court minstrel might. “But”—she leaned forward—“her greatest flaw was her pride. That’s what kept her from telling anyone what happened to her first child.”

“First child?” Ursula? Oh, no. Another. I struggled to keep up.

“No one knows this, and I’m asking you to keep your mother’s secret.”

I nodded, biting my lip to keep the questions back.

“After she became queen and later married Tosin and all was well for a while—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, “who was Tosin?”

“Terin’s twin brother. He didn’t tell you?” She tapped her fingers on the window ledge in irritation. “Of course he didn’t. And Rayfe is likely being his cagey self. But you’re Salena’s daughter, and if she’d lived, she would have told you all of this. So, I’m going to. It’s what she would have wanted. I can do that much for her.

“Terin and Tosin were of another of our oldest families—not as old as Salena’s and yours, but very strong, pure blood. Salena won the right to be queen, as is our custom, and elevated Tosin to king. All seemed well. Then, so far as anyone knows, Tosin killed himself one dark night. Terin took off wandering in his grief and Salena left Annfwn to wed Uorsin instead.”

“Leaving Annfwn without a ruler.”

She inclined her head as if I’d scored a point. “Worse, even, but I’ll get to that. So a tournament was held, to select the best.”

“And Rayfe won.”

“Yes.” She propped her chin on her hand. “He wouldn’t be dissuaded from trying—and he was only fourteen at the time. He was always such a serious child, so determined, driven.” She shook her head. “Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed these things about him. Salena envied me him and it distanced us. That I had my first child so easily.” With a finger that trembled slightly, she wiped away a tear. “It grieved me, but I understood that she couldn’t look on my fine boy without feeling pain. And her responsibilities kept her busy.”

“Her child . . . died?”

She nodded, closing her eyes at the memory. “It happens. More and more, some say, since we’ve stayed within the boundaries of Annfwn for so long. The babies are born twisted or weak. Or die in the womb.”

“I’ve seen this—only with horses.” The deformed foals that had to be put down still haunted me. “We had a royal breeder who tried to line breed too closely. After he was dismissed, the Master of Stables had to bring in studs from far away, to strengthen the stock again.”

She nodded, her face somber.

“That’s why she went to Uorsin.”

“I think so. I think she had two reasons. After the babe died and Tosin killed himself, Salena was nearly out of her mind with grief. She confided in me that she’d had terrible visions of the future. And they all pivoted around this part-blood from Elcinea.”

“Part-blood?”

“Many Tala believe we are the direct descendants of Moranu—that it is her blood that allows us to perform magic and that connects us so profoundly with our animal brethren. But our differences have long made us . . . uncomfortable for the mossbacks to be around. Then, the magic granted Annfwn great bounties. We were attacked, over and over again, decimating our people. Finally, one of our queens—your ancestress—created the barrier.”

“Which keeps people out, protecting Annfwn and the Tala.”

“Yes, with the unfortunate consequence of also sealing us in, so the magic intensifies—we sometimes get odd backlashes from it—and we interbreed too much, so our children fail. And once we go out, we can’t necessarily come back in.”

“But we did yesterday. Some of us.”

“Once you crossed over, yes?”

“Yes.”

“When the queen is in residence, she can somehow interact with the barrier and change how it behaves. It’s a closely guarded secret and Salena would never say how that worked. Whether Tala can cross on their own seems to have to do with how much of a pureblood they are. It’s obviously not something we can experiment with much. Clearly some of it is affected by you simply being inside. The barrier knows you.

“But what is crucial is that Annfwn needs a queen who can talk to the old magic, if we’re not to die in here, like insects trapped in a corked bottle. Salena believed that she needed a child by someone outside Annfwn to be the next queen.”

“But wouldn’t breeding with an outsider just dilute her blood?”

Rayfe’s mother raised her eyebrows at me and I remembered she’d called Uorsin a part-blood.

“My father is part Tala?” The concept rocked me. I wondered if he knew. No, of course he didn’t.

She was nodding. “So Salena saw in her visions. He was descended from Tala who’d had a political falling out, long before the barrier went up. They fled to Elcinea and quickly lost their magic and became as any other mossbacks.”

The way she used the word, with a hint of contempt, though I’m sure she didn’t consciously intend it, conveyed the image clearly—people so stolid and unchanging that moss grew on them as if they were rocks.

“But wouldn’t the bloodline have gotten weaker over time?”

“Not necessarily. Tala are drawn to one another in the outside world, I understand, like a kind of deep, irresistible attraction.” She smiled then, as the blush heated my cheeks. “Ah, yes—you felt it with my son. That’s all to the good. You two will have enough to face together. You deserve to at least enjoy each other.”

Her words echoed Rayfe’s; recalling the circumstances under which he’d said them did not help my blushing. Thankfully she let it alone.

“So, over generations, your father’s family found one another again and produced Uorsin—a man of sufficiently intense blood to long for Annfwn. Which brought him to Salena’s attention.”

“Because he could father viable children for her. But why not bring him here?”

“Ah.” She looked grave. “She foresaw terrible things if she did. That was what she confided in me, that no matter what path he followed, he would become the tyrant he is today.”

“I’m not sure it’s fair to call the High King a tyrant.” I felt stung enough by that to defend him. “He brought lasting peace to the Twelve Kingdoms.”

“As Salena channeled him to do. She had that arrogance, as I said, to believe she knew best. Making him High King, she insisted, was the least destructive option. And she would breed a new queen for Annfwn.”

“Or three.”

“She said one of you would have the mark—enough of the magic in her blood to work the barrier.” Her lips quirked as she studied me. “We’d hoped to meet Salena’s daughters long before this. She’d be so proud of you.”

A rush of emotion made my heart stutter. I hadn’t known how much I needed to hear that, to feel a connection. I blinked back the sudden tears, for once not minding them.

Rayfe’s mother smiled. “I’ll let you settle in and take some time to mull all of that over. I took the liberty of providing a range of clothing. You didn’t bring much.”

“I left in rather a hurry.”

“I can just imagine. I’d apologize for my son’s tactics, but I’m so very happy to have you among us, to have you as part of my family.” She squeezed my hand and turned to go.

“Um, my lady?”

She raised an eyebrow at me.

“What should I call you?”

“Garland,” she told me. “My name is Garland.”

A little piece fell into place with a snap. The name I’d given the pony, not the doll. I smiled at her, wanting her to see the truth in my eyes. “I’ve heard your name. She never forgot you.”

Now her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I’d like for that to be true.”

Rayfe found me sometime later, in the little library room, with the doll my mother gave me laid out on the carved wooden desk.

“Planning to perform surgery?” he asked, brushing my shoulder with light fingers. He’d changed out of his leathers and wore loose white pants and a flowing blue silk shirt that brought out the glints in his eyes. His hair was tied back in a casual knot and his feet were bare. He seemed like a totally different man. Something that put me at a loss. I knew how to handle Rayfe my sometime enemy, not this relaxed man with the charming smile.

“You look different.”

“And you look just the same,” he replied. “I thought you might have bathed and changed by now.”

I’d lost track of time, frankly. The sun lowered over the sea outside the windows. I frowned at it. “I am thinking about surgery. My mother gave me this doll and I’m wondering if she left a message in it for me. Something about how to talk to the barrier and let those other people through.”

“They’ll be all right, you know. You don’t have to solve everything in the first day.”

“I know.” But the burden weighed on me. I had never wanted to be responsible for other people this way. Hadn’t I told Ursula that countless times? “But if there’s something to the doll, I’d like to find out.”

Rayfe smoothed a hand over my hair, a comforting gesture, and examined the doll with curiosity. “It’s not a very pretty thing, is it?”

I chuckled at his careful wording. “No. Still, I hate to damage it.”

“But you think there’s a reason to?”

“Well, it’s not at all something you give a child to play with. I think she made it.”

Bracing a hand on the table, he bent over it, sniffing. “Yes, she used hair from one of her animal forms, and—look.” He turned over one of the paw-like hands and tapped the sharp tips of the meshed fingers. “Claws.”

“What does it mean?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Could be that it is a message of some sort.”

The doll lay there, glassy eyes staring at the high ceiling. It did smell kind of funny. “I need answers.”

“Come.” Rayfe held a hand down to me. “I have answers for you. Change into something comfortable. I’d like to be up top by sundown.”

“Up top?”

That wolfish grin slanted across his face. “Yes. The training grounds.”

It seemed to me that anyplace referred to as the “training grounds” would call for leathers, not the silky sweep of a dress Rayfe pointed me to. My closet here apparently contained little else. Great for walking on the beach maybe, but not so much for scaling cliffs, if “up top” meant what I thought it did.

“What about shoes?” I fretted.