Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (28 page)

Though she lacked the strength to draw her bow, it was nevertheless the first and finest thing Adria prepared for her exile. She had rarely been beyond the walls of the citadel, much less the city itself, but she drew upon everything she knew from Twyla’s stories and from books she had borrowed from her father’s library. She gathered food, a blade, some coin, and a few tools she thought she might need.

She said farewell to Hafgrim, awkwardly. He seemed a little hurt, but hid his feelings as any thirteen-year-old boy might, by pretending not to care about her “frivolity.” Still, in a sudden burst of emotion, once he realized the truth of it, he blamed her for abandoning him. Just as quickly, suddenly conciliatory, he offered to join her when he was knighted, and she swore an oath to return then, and to aid him in his first duty for Heiland. It was a childish promise made out of guilt, she realized even then, and still Adria determined to keep it.

There was little trouble leaving Windberth. The sally port remained open after dark, and more than a few servants returned to the city after the dinner hours. Though the guards took a cursory look over the young maids leaving, one of them seemed to have an affection for one among them, which she returned readily enough, and in this distraction Adria was able to slip past without a full search of her person.

She followed the King’s Road south, with enough coin and enough of the kindness of strangers to see her near the wild. Where both the rumors and the forest thickened, Adria found a village, recently raided by invisibles, without trace or trail.

“Were any children taken?” she asked a peasant worker in a field, beside a wall of wood and one of ashes.

“No, Ma’am.” The man shook his head. Though she had practiced, Adria was not always successful hiding her deportment. In this instance, the air of command served her, anyway.

“Were any of the raiders seen?” she continued. “Are there any witnesses to the attack?”

Again, he shook his head, and Adria felt in her purse for a coin. All that remained was a Crown. She had worked around it for days as she drained the small bag of lesser coins.

With a smile, she held it out for the man, whose eyes transfixed upon it in astonishment.

“Young Lady...”

“I know,” she sighed, forestalling him, taking his hand and placing it upon his palm gently. “It is an extravagant gesture. But… I am a pilgrim on such a path as I will need this no longer.”

She noticed, just as he closed his palm and thanked her politely, that some of the gold on the coin had worn from her father’s face, revealing the obsidian core beneath.

No children missing…
Adria wondered as she left the village and Aeman lands behind. She had dreamed of other worlds, fantasies seeded by her uncle, nurtured by superstitious servants and Sisters alike, and now bloomed in the recent revelations of the Matriarch and her father.

From the height of her whitewashed stone tower, Adria had always somehow believed in a place in the wood where all the lost children lived in peace with all their ghosts, be they angels or demons, hawks or doves or one more for the crows.

Adria would never stop moving. In fact, she would run.

A pair of Knights guarded her father’s door, and Adria squared her shoulders as she exited the stair, and she forced herself to walk more loudly than usual. She did not wish to have the appearance of stealth but of belonging. The guards seemed to pay her little attention as she approached the ornately-carved oak door of her father’s solar.

By any accounts, the king had become increasingly reclusive, even as Taber had adopted more and more responsibility, both for herself and for the Sisterhood in general. The Council of Peers no longer met regularly, as had been the custom of Aeman kingdoms for as long as they had existed.

The majority of the High Council, those who had once served the daily functions of the kingdom, had long since been relegated to great estates in various corners of the kingdom. Some considered it an honor, it was said, others a forced retirement. Their duties, if not their outright titles, had also been absorbed by the Sisterhood and its Matriarch. It was even said by many that only Taber herself still kept council with the king, and rumors abounded of his illness, his madness, even his death.

My father has walked too long in shadow,
Adria knew.
Flown too long among the crows. I did not know what this meant when last we spoke. Now, I know all too well the warning Taber tried to give. And why she would not disallow my visit upon my return.

The Knight guards stood at further attention as she stopped between them, one step from the door. They saluted, but said nothing. Adria did not recognize them, and felt suddenly rather small in their presence, though she had personally bested and even slain more than two among their order.

Perhaps this is simply a trap,
Adria thought. 
Perhaps the news of Hafgrim’s knighting was part of a ploy for Taber to be rid of me.

But she could easily have been slain before this point, had Taber the will or reason. And Adria did not believe the Matriarch would take such a risk, to slay a Royal so openly, even an errant one. She would certainly use much more guile. Still, the notion of her relative helplessness made its impression. She could best these knights, and more
...

But… to slaughter my way through an entire citadel?

Adria inclined her head and saluted to the Knights in turn.

Power is determined by mobility,
 she sighed. 
And yet, here I stand before my father’s door, at the center of his city and fortress, forcing my legs to keep me upright. But… it is neither a Knight, nor even death that I fear… It is what I fear to find behind this door that weakens me.

She suddenly remembered a night long before, when she and Hafgrim had stood, shivering from cold and fear, in the catacombs of the castle, and wondered, 
Am I still that same child?

When she reached for the door handle, the Knights took both handles themselves, then opened both doors wide for her.

Adria took a long breath, and then a first step inside, as the doors met softly behind her.

Nothing in her father’s solar had changed much in the years she had been gone — nothing except her father himself. Shelves were filled with books and scrolls, cases with rare weapons and totems from his conquests. The chessmen lay upon their carved table, but a thin layer of dust suggested they had fallen into disuse.

The windows were shuttered and curtained against the wind, and though a fire had been set in the hearth, it now burned loose and low, leaving the room cold and full of shadow.

Beside the hearth, her father sat within his chair, bundled in heavy robes of violet and black. Where his face lay visible, it had aged more than seemed reasonable in three years. His brow was wrinkled in concentration, his flesh devoid of color, his lips taut and muttering. He rocked a little, forward and back, as if to keep from shivering.

He had taken no notice of her, or of the doors opening and closing, though Adria still made some effort to walk with noise. Uncertain of her place, and even of her purpose, she crossed the carpet and knelt at his side, though she did not lower her eyes.

“Father?” she whispered. The word seemed strange, though she had never called him anything else.

He stirred a little, still muttering inaudibly, and his eyes seemed to notice her, though they turned to all sides, as if looking for someone else around her.

He searches among shadows…

His hands were covered, or she might have reached for one — to kiss his ring, perhaps… to test for fever. She did not feel she could simply touch his face, daughter or no, estranged or otherwise. She still fear him, she knew, and was still angry, but she was now more frightened and angry for him.

“I am here, Father,” she said, wondering now how her voice had changed, her body… everything.
How is he truly to know me? I am no longer the child who fled his presence, as he is no longer the man I fled.

Though slighter of build than his brother, King Ebenhardt had been a powerful man, formidable of mind and of body. He had used them to ends Adria would now consider mostly terrible, and still Adria knew how those who changed may yet be changed.

If he is truly lost, somehow, there will never be any hope he might undo what he has done — and what continues to be done in his name.

She struggled for some way to engage him, and turned aside to the chessboard.

“Shall we play chess, Father, as we once did?” she said uncertainly. “You know… I haven’t played since I last left this room. I’m certain I’m no match for you now. If I ever truly were.”

Some revelation seemed to come to him at this, and his eyes widened, and he spoke, his voice low and scratched with disuse.

“Knight to queen’s rook six — check. King to queen’s knight one. Bishop to king’s rook two — check…”

Given the cadence of his speech, it seemed now he had only raised his voice and continued what he had been muttering. He had likely been reciting a game since she had entered, and for some unknowable time before. But still he didn’t look to her, or even to the board. Still did not acknowledge her as
her
.

But it is something,
she sighed.

His voice lowered to muttering again, but he seemed to calm a little as he finished out the game. Adria felt a pressure in her stomach, and she shook her head involuntarily.

“Oh, Father…” she sighed, lowering her chin to the arm of his chair, looking for a sign of greater among the robes of shadow.

No wonder this is a secret. Taber cannot let the nobility know what has happened to you. Not until she can reasonably crown Hafgrim.
 Her thoughts raced as she shivered a little. 
But then… then why would she send him abroad? Merely to prove his worth?
It did not make sense to Adria, no matter how she turned it over.
And what does she plan for me? Why allow me to see my father, when he is…?

“What game does she play?” she asked aloud, though she did not expect an answer.

“Princes, pawns, and peasants all, played down, laid low, sleeping and rutting and dying, in filth.” His voice found a bit more strength. “Sacrifice the knight… make a queen.”

“Father?” Adria pleaded, sitting up and leaning in closer to see his face. “I don’t understand you, Father.”

“Right and left, back and forth, black and white. No triple repetition else the mate is stale.”

Focus, Father… please try.
 She willed silently, then repeated it aloud. And he seemed to, then, for he turned and widened his eyes upon her, then narrowed them again suspiciously, and frowned silently. But his eyes remained upon hers.

“Do you know me?” she asked hopefully. “Does my voice comfort you?”

He shook his head sadly. “Not anymore, how can I?”

“Yes,” She smiled, reassured, then nodded. “I have been gone from here, for so very long.”

“Lost in the woods. A violent west. Dead and buried. Pawned for a queen.” He played at his robes upon his lap, his vision focusing through her and far beyond. One hand freed itself, and she was shocked to see how gaunt it had become, how long his nails had grown.

Taber cannot even see to have you groomed…

“Not the Violet West, no. And not dead. Is this what they have told you?” she urged, now even angrier, for his sake and her own. “Look at me, Father. I am quite alive, and you are not quite lost. Isn’t it time for you to leave the shadow of the crows?”

“Once more for the crows…” He sighed and shook his head mournfully. “Choirs of crows and lairs of wolves. Liars and minstrels and poets and madmen. Knight to queen’s rook six — check. King to queen’s knight one…”

Taber is right… it is like a curtain lies between us.
 Adria turned her head aside, trying not to show her tears, her disappointment, her fear and her rage.
If only there were a bridge between us, I could meet him half the distance. I could turn him from this path as I have done before…