Daughter of the Disgraced King (16 page)

Besides that, even the possibility was years—maybe decades—away.
Sav, with the best of intentions, couldn’t begin to do anything about the
barons against his own father’s wishes. And there was no doubt at all where
King Ewart stood on the issue. If only she could talk to Sav about all of this.
How else could she know if he was even willing to try?

She stopped in her circuit of the room. She needed to get
out, to breathe fresher air, to walk among growing things. That always helped
clear her head and let her think better. Ailsa looked out the window and sighed.
It was dark out—dark as it could only be far away from any city or town. No
street lights, not even any light from any of the other windows on this side
of the lodge. Only the stars and a tiny sliver of moon. It must be even later
than she thought.

Ailsa spun as the side door opened behind her—the one that
connected to Mayra’s room.

“I heard you moving around,” Mayra said. “Is everything all
right?”

Ailsa shrugged irritably. “I’m just restless.” She let out a
sigh. “I thought about going for a walk in the garden, but it’s too late. I
wouldn’t want to disturb anyone.”

Mayra cocked her head to one side, studying Ailsa. “It’s not
that
late. The boys are up playing battle chess in the main room. They
invented that themselves years ago. The board’s twice the size of a regular
chess board and there are four players, white and black, plus red and blue.
Although I overheard Jathan arguing that his blue pieces really needed to be
painted green, now. I think Mother and Father are there, too, reading. Thing
is, the lodge doesn’t
have
a garden as such. Not like at home. There’s a
little vegetable garden out back, but that’s not very interesting.” She bit her
lip. “There
are
trails into the nearby forest. Most are too long or not
safe to walk at night—too steep or rocky, mostly. But there
is
the
promenade. Father had that built for his first empress when she was pregnant
with Artair. It’s boardwalk all the way around, nice and level, and it doesn’t
go far. I could show you, if you like.”

Ailsa looked around the room, which she’d been pacing like a
caged desert cat. “If it won’t be a bother to you—or to anyone else.”

Mayra smiled. “No bother.”

She linked her arm through Ailsa’s and led her toward a door
at the back of the lodge. A guard snapped to attention as they exited.

“We’re just going for a turn around the promenade before
bed,” Mayra told him as they passed.

The guard nodded gravely.

Mayra leaned closer to Ailsa and whispered, “They get really
twitchy if you don’t tell them where you’re going. But they aren’t allowed to
stop us unless we’re going to do something dangerous—that’s mostly for my
brothers, though. And the promenade hasn’t been considered too dangerous since
I was old enough to be allowed out on my own.”

Mayra pulled on Ailsa’s arm to direct her to the left. “The
promenade’s this way. You’ll like it, even in the dark, though I’ll have to
bring you out here again in the daytime. It loops around some of the biggest
and oldest trees in this part of the forest.” Mayra tripped on a rock and
nearly stumbled.

Ailsa caught her. “Wait a moment.” She silently cursed
herself for not thinking of this before. She’d practiced it often enough in
Practical Basics of Magic. Disengaging her arm from Mayra’s, Ailsa pressed her
hands together as if she were molding a ball. A green light began to filter
through her fingers and grew brighter as she compressed it. When it was about
the size of her fist, Ailsa dropped the glowing ball to hover just above their
feet, where it lit their path, but little else.

Mayra laughed and clapped her hands together. “I hope I
prove to have magic so I can learn to do that.”

“It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have brought you out here in the
dark.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I often get restless and take
night-time walks when my brothers get to be too much. One by one, they’re not
so bad, but all together . . .” Mayra gave a mock shudder.

“Oh, this has nothing to do with your brothers,” Ailsa said.

Mayra cocked her head to the side again, considering Ailsa. “Well,
you were certainly upset about something.”

Ailsa stepped up onto the promised boardwalk. “It’s just that
I realized today that there’s no way I could ever give up my magic. I’d known
it before, of course. But today just made it real for me.”

“Well, of course not. Why would you even think of such a
thing?”

Ailsa trailed her free hand across a bush that stood close
by. One of the furled buds opened into a bright white flower as she touched it.
She bit her lip. She hadn’t even meant to do that. The magic had just . . .
leaked out.

“Ailsa?”

“Before I left home to come to the Institute, a young man
asked me to marry him. I told him I had to find out what I could do first.”

Mayra shrugged. “I still don’t see the problem. Lots of
mages are married. Most of them, in fact.”

“Things are different in Far Terra. Most of the barons don’t
trust mages and King Ewart certainly doesn’t.”

“So?”

Ailsa drew a deep breath. “So, the young man in question is
Crown Prince Savyon. And I don’t think he
can
marry a mage, even if he
wants to. The only reason his father is king is because mine had to abdicate after
he married my mother. Because she’s a mage. To stand against the barons and his
father—” Ailsa shook her head.

A crease appeared in Mayra’s brow and her voice dropped
lower. “Do you love him that much?”

Ailsa blinked and stopped, staring at one of the huge trees
without seeing it. Did she? She loved Sav, certainly, but . . . that much? In
that way? She didn’t dream about Sav any more—hadn’t for a month or more.
Recently, there’d been whole days when she never even thought of him. Twice,
she’d nearly forgotten to write the promised weekly letter to him. And yet,
when she’d kissed him . . . She let her breath out in a long sigh. “I don’t
know, Mayra. I don’t really have anything to compare my feelings for Sav to. No
one else has ever . . . because of my father, none of the barons’ sons will
even dance with me, usually, except for Sav and my cousin Perion, when his
mother forces him to, and occasionally Prince Cergio.”

Mayra smiled slyly. “Well, then. Maybe we should see that
you meet a few more young men, so you can figure it out.”

Ailsa allowed Mayra to pull her on down the walk. “That
doesn’t seem very fair to Sav.”

Mayra snorted. “Fair? How fair was it of him to ask you
something like that right before you were set to leave, before you even knew
what you’d be giving up? Without giving you enough time to really think about
it? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching Artair and Rishiart it’s
never to let a boy hustle you into any decision. It’s never
your
best
interests they have in mind.

“There are more balls coming up after we get back. I’ll make
sure my brothers introduce you to some of their friends. I bet you or Jathan
know a few possibilities from the Institute and the Academy, too.”

Ailsa shook her head. “It won’t matter. No one else has ever
been interested in me that way. No one else ever will. Not for long, anyway.”

Mayra patted her hand. “Not everyone comes from Far Terra.”

Ailsa turned to Mayra. “No, but they’d have to deal with Far
Terra and all its problems if I’m going to use my magic to help my homeland. It
comes to the same thing. It’s impossible. It was always impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible. Not if you set your mind to it.”

Ailsa walked in silence for a moment. Nothing was
impossible? Well, that might be a bit optimistic. But . . . it was surely true
that the most impossible thing was the one you never attempted. That was the
one thing that guaranteed failure. She couldn’t do anything really about Sav.
Not right now. When she got back to Grandmama’s house, she could try to compose
a message, open up a dialog. But half of that possibility had to be his choice.
The only thing she could really do anything about right now was becoming the
very best green mage she could be. And then see what things that made possible.
If it felt anything at all like today, that couldn’t be a bad thing.

She jerked her chin up and stepped out a little faster.

The next day all of them—the four princes, Mayra, and Ailsa—set
out early to explore the surrounding mountains on horseback, followed by their
guards. The princes knew the area well, of course. And Mayra knew quite a few
of the trails, too. It was all new to Ailsa.

They rode through a mixed forest of pines and oaks with lush
undergrowth. It wasn’t nearly as ancient as the forest they’d ridden through
the day before, but the mix of oak and pine had a charm and wildlife of its
own. Ailsa noticed that squirrels and deer were more frequent here and there
were more different kinds of birds flitting around the branches. The varied
forests of the Ring Mountains were endlessly fascinating, but they also made
Ailsa aware of how young and relatively poor the Far Terran forests were.

As the sun climbed to midday and past, Ailsa began to eye
the bags that hung from the saddle horns of the princes. The trail passed
through a beautiful little glade with a small stream running and gurgling
through it and deep, thick grass cushioning the ground. It was the perfect
place for a picnic. “Why don’t we stop here?”

“Not quite yet,” Jathan said. “There’s something I want you
to see. It’s not far now.”

“What is it?”

Jathan winked at her. “You’ll see.”

Ailsa looked across at Mayra, riding beside her, but the
other girl just shrugged. Ailsa’s stomach rumbled and she was just about ready
to speak up again when the princes in the lead stopped. Ailsa and Mayra rode up
beside them.

Below them, the land fell away in a perfect bowl. The exact center
of the bowl was a crystal-blue lake, surrounded by a dense pine forest. It was
a striking vista. Ailsa stood and just stared at it as the older princes
dismounted and found a spot under the shade of an old oak to set up lunch.

“I thought you’d like this,” Jathan said. “This is where it
all started, you know.”

Ailsa didn’t take her eyes from the view. “Where what
started?”

“Far Terra. The idea of it,” Jathan said. “The Ring
Mountains are volcanoes. Mostly dormant volcanoes, but still . . . Generations
ago, one of them erupted. All of this was just steaming lava until some mages
decided to see what they could do. Heat and ice mages bled the heat off. Earth
mages broke the lava down into soil. Then water and green mages went to work
bringing it to life. It succeeded so well that your . . .” Jathan paused and
counted on his fingers. “Your four-times-great-grandfather got the idea to try
to transform the desert, too.”

Ailsa blinked and focused on that impossibly blue lake. She
knew the story, of course. She’d just never expected to see the place that was
part of Far Terran legend. This valley—
this valley
—had been more
desolate than any part of the desert ever could be. Not long before Far Terra
was first founded. And now it was this rich and beautiful forest. With the
right emphasis and enough magic, Far Terra could be like this. It was possible.
The sort of possible she could bind herself to. A legacy worth a lifetime’s
work.

~

Jathan smiled as he watched the wonder bloom in Ailsa’s
eyes. He’d guessed right in bringing her here. Then he saw her stance change.
She stood taller—well, as tall as it was possible for her to stand—and pulled
her shoulders back. Even her jaw set. After her interview with the emperor, it
wasn’t hard to guess what she was thinking. She was rededicating herself to
take her remarkable magic and go back to Far Terra.

Jathan swallowed bile. He’d wanted to please Ailsa. He
wanted to make her happy here and keep her in Terranion. Mostly, he really didn’t
want her to go away. Especially not to go back to Far Terra, the one place he
had no desire to go—ever. The place where his real father had died.

He looked back out at the valley. It had been his mother who’d
brought him here for the first time, ages ago. She’d told him about coming here
with his father and how the place had affected him. Jathan suppressed a
shudder. This was the very place where his real father had dedicated himself to
working for Far Terra. What had ever possessed him to bring Ailsa here of all
places?

He sighed. He’d known ever since that meeting with his
stepfather what Ailsa’s plans were. He should be taking her to the places that
would make her never want to leave, not to the places that would cement her
resolution. He thought about everything she’d said about Far Terra. He rolled
it over in his mind.

If Ailsa was right—and she knew more about affairs in Far
Terra than anyone else he knew—then his father’s death wasn’t really the fault
of the Far Terran barons, the way he’d always thought it was. True, the barons
had made a stupid mistake—one he’d bet at least some of them regretted, now.
And the mages, including his father, had reacted to that, as was their right.
It was just some freakish accident of the weather that had killed his father.

Jathan looked out over the valley again, seeing it the way
his father must have. Maybe he shouldn’t have such a horror of Far Terra. Maybe
the best way to honor his father’s memory was to continue the work his father
had started. Now that was a new idea. He wasn’t at all sure he was ready for
that.

At least it would have the advantage of letting him be with
Ailsa. He already knew he wanted that, especially after that soaring feeling of
working together over that burned area. Oh, yes. He wanted to keep on doing
that, all right, even if that was all he could have with her. She was, after
all, a princess. And he wasn’t really a prince, wasn’t even really of noble
blood. He shouldn’t even think about anything more. He shouldn’t . . . but he
couldn’t seem to help it.

He certainly hadn’t thought of much besides Ailsa in the
last couple of weeks. Was this what falling in love felt like? Just his luck to
fall in love with someone he could never have.

~

Ailsa bit her lip as she scanned the meager book shelves of
the lodge’s main room. It was clear that nobody spent much time reading while
they were here. Most of what was here seemed to reflect what she surmised were
the tastes of the emperor and empress, mainly technical volumes on various
topics. She pulled out a book on forestry out of curiosity. There simply weren’t
a lot of books to choose from and none of them would suit her purpose.

Ailsa climbed the stairs back to her room and sat at the
small desk, tapping her pen against her cheek. She needed to write to Sav, but
she was stymied by the knowledge that King Ewart would read anything she wrote.
Even with a much larger library, she wasn’t sure she could find what she needed
to encode what she had to say.

There was a soft knock on the door that connected to Mayra’s
room and the princess opened the door. “Couldn’t find anything to read? If you’re
bored, there are other games besides battle chess. Or there’s the music room,
if you play. Or we could just talk.”

Ailsa sat back with a sigh. “It’s not that I’m bored, Mayra.
I’m stuck. I want to write to Sav. I promised to write to him every week
anyway, but right now I really want to let him know what I’ve learned about my
magic and what I want to do with it. If . . . if I can make him understand,
then he’ll at least have a chance to think about it and decide what’s most important
to him. When I left, he thought I’d either become a mage or come back to marry
him. Grandmama thinks there may be a way to do both—but it won’t be easy. Sav
will have to decide if he’s willing to fight for that possibility or not. I
want to at least get him thinking about that option so we can talk about it
when your father sends for him.” She huffed a short laugh. “I don’t want to
make the same mistake he did by waiting ‘til the last minute.”

Mayra sat down in the armchair by the fire. “Sounds like a
good idea. What’s stopping you?”

Ailsa bit the end of her pen. “Someone—almost certainly his
father, King Ewart—has been reading our letters to each other. We’ve been using
a code, referencing passages out of books. There aren’t enough books here. Frankly,
I’m not sure the master library of the Academy would be enough to express all
of that, though. I don’t know how to tell Sav what I need to say without also
telling King Ewart.”

Mayra sat up straight. “Does Father know your letters are
being read?”

“Yes. He’s not happy about it, but what can he do from here?”

Mayra sat back, biting her lip. “Well, there’s one thing he
can do, anyway. You go ahead and write your letter, just like no one but Prince
Savyon was going to read it. Then we’ll get Father to put his seal on it. That’ll
keep anyone else from reading it, I’ll bet.”

 Ailsa put her pen down. “Would the emperor be willing to do
that?”

Mayra smiled. “He will if I ask him.”

Ailsa nodded. She knew that confidence. She might not often
get around Mama, but she’d always been able to get most anything she wanted
from Papa, if she approached him right. Anyway, even if she never sent the
letter it would be good—clarifying—to write her thoughts down and organize them
on paper, where she could look at them from the outside. “All right. Thanks.”
She picked her pen back up and drew a deep breath. It still was not going to be
an easy letter to write, but at least it would be possible if she could just
write what she meant clearly.

~

Jathan’s stepbrothers and Mayra took turns picking out the
trails and the destinations over the next days. Artair tended to choose easy,
well-used trails that led to some forestry project he wanted to take a look at
or report back on to Father. Arrigo usually picked the most difficult and
sometimes risky trails, regardless of their destination. Fortunately, Ailsa
seemed to enjoy the challenge of those rides. Rishiart chose the sorts of
places Jathan should have picked—lush forests that couldn’t help but delight
any green mage. Ailsa clearly soaked it all in like she’d been parched all her
life. In a sense, Jathan supposed, she had.

When Jathan’s turn came around again, he hesitated over the
choice. He should take her deep into the old, old part of the forest, where the
great red-barked giants predominated and the groves looked like temples with
the light slanting through the trees. He should. But Ailsa had been sad the
last couple of days. Sadder than a green mage should be surrounded by these
lush forests. Maybe this would cheer her up, make her smile again. Or laugh. He
really wanted to hear her laugh. So he decided to take her to another place.
One he’d visited only once. It wasn’t the smartest move from one viewpoint, but
maybe he’d find some perspective there, too.

When he announced his choice, Mayra rebelled. “Oh, no. I’m
not going all the way up there. That’s no fun at all. I’ll just stay here.
Maybe I’ll go for a swim.”

“What’s wrong with this trail?” Ailsa asked.

“Nothing,” Jathan answered before Mayra could. “There’s just
a bit of a climb at the end. But I think you’ll appreciate the view.”

The last part of the trail switchbacked up toward the
mountain peaks. Up here, the forest thinned out until there were only pines and
even they grew sparser, shorter, and shrubbier. At this altitude, the horses—even
Diamond—struggled to keep moving up the trail. They had to dismount and
continue on foot.

As they climbed higher, the pines were gnarled caricatures
of trees, clinging close to boulders or sweeping along the ground rather than
growing straight. Even so, Jathan could sense their age. These trees were as
old as anything in the denser forest below.

Nevertheless, the sparsity of vegetation began to make him
edgy.

He knew Ailsa was feeling the same when she asked
plaintively, “Where are we going?”

Jathan pointed up the trail. “Just up to that ridge. Trust
me. The view will be worth it.”

Even the warped pines were behind them now. The only
vegetation were shrubs that rose barely a foot above the ground.

Ailsa shivered despite the direct sunlight, unfiltered by
any shade. “I’d be happier back in the forest. This feels . . .”

Jathan knew exactly what she meant. It felt empty. And
something about that emptiness made him feel hollow and lethargic. But they
were so close, now. He took her hand. “I know. I feel it, too. It’s just a
little farther, now. Then we’ll go back down.”

Artair and Arrigo, who’d taken the lead when they
dismounted, were already making the last climb to the top of the ridge.
Rishiart was close enough behind that Jathan could hear his heavy breathing. Jathan
tugged at Ailsa’s hand. She bit her lip and allowed him to lead her forward, up
the final scramble to reach the top.

Jathan held onto Ailsa’s hand until he felt she was sure of
her footing on the loose rocks of the ridge top, Ailsa looked up and sucked in
a deep breath. There, laid out before them was Far Terra. From here, she could
make out the deep green heart of Far Terra, backed up to the forested hills in
the distance, and the paler, newer, centers of growth where the desert was even
now being tamed, mostly by sweat. Other, grayer green centers marked more far-flung
water sources the Far Terrans had not yet attempted to cultivate.