A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 (18 page)

Chapter 22

Ailana

Once arrived at the Imperial Palace and
settled into another tiny room in the servant’s wing, this time with a bed
solely for myself, I was summoned to the Lord Chamberlain’s office.  There, I
was declared the Royal Head Seamstress and given a key to an empty room to use
as my shop.

It was, in fact, the same room, the same
desk, the same needles and threads, and the very same table where I had worked
once before.  Long ago, it seemed, nearly a lifetime in another world, I had
sat at this same window mending and sewing.

That was when I still had hopes and dreams
that might someday come true, when I had coins in my pockets, and fine
department store dresses to wear.  That was also when a handsome noble man met
me by the fountain and shared with me his soul, and later, I shared with him my
body.

Now, every day, I stared out at the frozen
courtyard, for the winter had come and was vicious, punishing us with heavy
snow.  The gardens were nothing but skeletons of dead shrubs, and the rose
bushes were empty and layered in ice. 

I never left the servant’s building even
to walk about, so did not see how the ocean had breached the seawall on the
palace’s eastern shore.  A maid, who cleaned the apartments of the nobility,
told me that all the sand had eroded until there was none.  All that remained
was a wall of large, black boulders and the frigid waters splashing upon them. 
Angry, bitter ocean tears were cast upon the windows, no matter how high above
they were.

“It is because the angels are angry,” the
maid whispered.  “They do not approve of our new king.” 

She was bringing me her thin coat with a
torn lining and sleeves which required the filthy lace to be replaced.  Like
most, she had no coins to pay me.  Instead, she offered me a half loaf of
bread, or four chocolate cookies uneaten by the King. 

“Why do they not like him?” I asked,
accepting her gifts and stowing them in the closet beneath an overturned box.

“He is cruel,” the maid replied, her hand
paused on the door.  Then, she bit her lip to keep from saying what all knew. 
Marko Korelesk had stolen the Crown, even though it had been empty, awaiting a
new head.  “They say-they say-there is another to whom it rightly belongs.”

“What is he called?”  I feigned
disinterest, although the needle between my fingers began to shake.  There was
one.  Only one, if he still lived, by birthright it belonged to him.

“A boy.”  She spoke beneath her breath,
coming closer as if to watch my needlework.  “A Karut boy.”

Her foul scent seeped over my shoulder,
for this poor girl knew not to wash or brush her teeth.  Though, this stench
bothered my nose, I resolved to bear it so I might hear. 

“Who?” I asked again, waiting for the
name, which I had granted him myself and held closely in my heart every moment
of every day.  “Who told you this?  Who else knows of this boy?”

“I overheard a conversation between the
Lord Chief of Staff and a man who came into his office.  I was in the corridor
dusting and could not help but overhear their words.  The man said there is a
boy.  A boy who the Karuts claim is the MaKennah returned.  This boy’s face,
they say, resembles that of King Mikal, and the Great Emperor before him from
long ago.”

My heart raced a little, although this
gossip was not a confirmation.  Mikal favored his Karupta ancestors and that
family was large and filled with many boys.  Grandmother often said that we,
too, were descended from those same genes.  Only one boy, though, only one
would have a feature that set him apart.

“What of his eyes?” I whispered,
attempting to make a stitch.  I was so distracted and anxious that my needle
moved astray and like a novice, I stabbed into my thumb instead.

“Foolish girl!” Grandmother yelled from
the recesses of my brain.  “Concentrate on your work or you will die alone in
the snow.”

“His eyes?” the maid repeated.  “How did
you know of the boy’s strange eyes?”

“Tell me!” I demanded, brandishing my
needle like a sword.

The girl looked at me with curiosity,
biting her lip and debating whether or not I had gone mad.

“He said---.”  She opened her mouth but
was interrupted by the swinging of the door.  The wind grabbed it and slammed
it open, allowing a gust of frigid air to enter the room.  “I’ll return
tomorrow, Mistress Seamstress.”

The maid’s footsteps quickly ran away.  I
ignored her as if she was no one, listening to the soft sounds of another as he
approached on shoes too thin to tread through the mountains of ice and snow
lining the pathway to my shop.

“Ailana,” the voice said, too high and too
soft for such a boy.  “Will you fix something for me quickly?  I’ll pay you
double, or even triple for your time.”

“Of course, Petya, and you owe me
nothing.  Your sweet company gives me pleasure enough.”  I set down the maid’s
torn coat and took his socks, which needed darning in three places.  “Are you
hungry?  I have bread and cookies.  Please eat them before the mice.”

The boy shook his head and sat in his
usual chair.  He had grown tall, but his limbs were far too thin.  The faint
mustache, which graced his lip, had darkened, but was out of place upon a face
that looked more like it belonged to a woman. 

Still, we went through this routine on
every visit, for he came often with his clothes always in need of repairs.  He
spent hours by my side, sharing gossip and trading news, and I enjoyed his
company for he was just my Amyr’s age. 

But, Petya’s life was hard and filled with
a pain of which I dared not to think, or question.  What was done to this boy,
when he was not with me, burned a hole in my soul and the pit of my stomach. 
Instead, I sought to humor him, to make him laugh, and smile, to forget his
woes.  I wished that far off in Karupatani, a woman was doing the same for my
son, for now I knew with certainty that my Amyr was alive. 

“You’re not eating enough,” I scolded,
followed by a chorus of motherly clucks, while laying the cookies in front of
him on my only silver tray.  “How are you, dear?  Tell me your news.  Are you
feeling better?  Did you get over your ague and malaise?” 

Petya turned his gaze to the window, to
the ever present snow that never ceased to drift from the sky.  His eyes grew
wet, sending a spike of fear through my heart.  I turned my own eyes away,
examining the socks and putting a finger through each hole.

“My son would destroy a pair of socks each
time he wore them.  Do you think far off in the motherland, there is woman to
repair his, while he sits beside her in a chair?”

“You said your son was dead,” Petya
murmured, his voice empty of emotion.

“I don’t know.  I hope not.  I heard---I
heard, just this day---”

“I hate him,” Petya interrupted, his voice
suddenly growing violent.  “I would kill him if I could.  I would slash his
throat and watch him bleed.”

Not my son.  I knew he did not speak of my
son. 

“Hush now,” I implored him.  “Don’t say
such evil words.  The Evil One will hear you and bid you come to serve him.”

Petya shook his head.

“I don’t care.  I would serve him for he
is kinder than my current master.”

To this I didn’t respond, for I had no
words of wisdom I could share.  Instead, I picked up my needle and prepared to
begin my mending.  I noted the perfectly round hole upon the sole where the
threads of wool were once again singed. 

“Do you need some salve, Petya?” I asked,
keeping my voice steady and without pity, for the boy would only snap at me if
I treated him like a babe.

He didn’t answer, and when I looked up
from my needle and thread, I saw tears drifting quietly down his cheeks.

How I wanted to take him in my arms, to
hug him and to comfort him!  How I wished I could make his demons go away. 
Yet, in the past, when I touched his arms, he would forcefully push me aside. 

“I do not need a mother,” he would snap. 
“I am not your replacement son.”

Petya left immediately after that,
refusing my salve, or the handkerchief to dry his tears.  From my window, I
watched him disappear, like a ghost in the wilderness of snow.  As I held his
ruined sock in my hand, I decided the maid had been correct.  The angels were
angry and they were punishing us for allowing such an evil king.

I repaired Petya’s socks, but he never
came to fetch them.  In fact, for a week, he was unseen about the palace. 

“Everyone is searching for him,” the maid
whispered when she arrived to collect her coat.  “The King is in a rage and
demands the boy be produced forthwith.”

I worried after Petya, for he had become
my replacement son.  As to the king’s interest in him, that I did not question,
nor did I doubt the King was behind the boy’s disappearance. 

For this and more, I despised Marko
Korelesk.  I called him a pretender to the throne and I did not care who heard
me speak these words.

Ten days from the day Petya left me with
his socks, when the snow had abated for a few hours, a guard spied a body upon
the rocks below the seawall.  It was frozen and blue, but his form remained
intact. 

Immediately, he was recognized as Petya. 
Whether he jumped himself, or was pushed into the waters, was still in doubt. 
To me, it didn’t matter, for I knew who killed him, if not by his own hand.

“Careful, Mistress Seamstress,” the maid
said.  “If His Majesty hears of your disdain, you’ll be sent out upon the
streets to join the beggars in the snow.”

“I don’t care,” I declared and though a
great injustice had been done, I took comfort in knowing even a king wouldn’t
escape God’s Final Judgement.

The following day, a funeral was held for
Petya, in which he was entombed in the mausoleum adjacent to the palace. 
Curiously, this boy was placed in building full of noble souls, surrounded on
either side by the ducal ancestors of Korelesk.

There were few who attended this simple
service beyond a maid, four page boys of Petya’s age, an elderly butler, a
young uniformed guardsman, and lastly, me. 

“A pity,” everyone said, placing a hand
upon the polished stone, wishing the child peace in the next world and whatever
came beyond.  Then, they walked away, except for the guardsman, who like me
chose to sit upon a bench and reflect.

“I shall miss him greatly,” the young man
said. 

“As will I.  He was far too young to die.”

No more words passed between us until much
later, when the sky grew dark and the building chilled as night began to fall. 

I would have stayed until dawn, if I could
have.  It was the custom of my people to sit beside the dead until they were
well upon their way. 

Although Petya was not of Karupatani, I
felt it was something that I must do.  The young guardsman seemed inclined to
do the same, until our vigil was interrupted by an angry voice.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” the
King demanded, interrupting our silent contemplations.

“I---” I rose from the bench and began to
speak, assuming that his words had been directed at me.

“I told you to stay away from him!  Now,
you disobey me even in his death!  Be gone with you, or you shall follow him
across the seawall into the surf.”

Before I could speak again, the guardsman
quit the room, running quickly past the King, while I stood trembling in my
place.  My own knees were too weak to move, and my heart was fluttering wildly
in my chest, as the King took the guardsman’s seat upon the bench and sat down
heavily. 

I thought he would order me away, as
well.  At least, I assumed he would question who I was.  Surprisingly, Marko
Korelesk ignored me.  Burying his head in his hands, the King began to weep,
leaving me to watch his sorrow in stunned amazement.

“I loved him,” the King sobbed, as great
tears rolled down his cheeks and I, who should have held her foolish tongue,
lashed out with angry words.

“Love?” I spat.  “That is what you call
what you have done to him?  His death is on your shoulders, for if not by your
own hand, you certainly drove him to it.”

“What?”  The King looked up and as if
realizing I was there, he narrowed his red rimmed eyes and pointed at the
floor.

Hesitantly, for I had vowed never to make
obeisance before him again, I stood my ground.  Crossing my arms before my
chest, I refused to kneel. 

“I said, you killed him,” I accused.  “If
you truly loved him, you would have seen the pain you caused.  It was plainly
evident if you had dared to look.  Your actions with him were despicable and
repulsive.  No amount of penance will absolve you of this sin.”

“Then, you are mistaken, Mistress,” the
King replied, his voice going hard and cold.  “I neither wished for him, nor
caused him pain.  I sought only to provide him with a life of honor and
respect.  It was his own poor choices which hastened his death.”