Heroes Return (15 page)

“Thought you might have come to your senses,” he grumbled.

“And I thought you might come to yours. It looks like we were both wrong.”

“You have no right to deprive me of my livelihood!”

“You violated a whole raft of sea laws. The
Sea Wind
was unseaworthy. You patched ice damage with barely secured tin. You didn’t use a compass or lead lines. You overcrowded your passengers to an appalling degree, packing them like cargo. It’s a wonder you didn’t kill anyone.”

“The old Duke never minded,” he said mulishly, and I wondered if he meant Taro’s brother or his father.

“I can’t speak for anyone else on that matter,” said Fiona. “As long as I’m the titleholder, the laws will be obeyed.”

“I’ve debts coming due. If I don’t pay them, I go to jail. Then there is no money coming in. What’s my family supposed to do? The youngest is only four.”

“These difficulties are due to your behavior, not mine,” Fiona said resolutely.

I admired her for that. I would have had trouble sticking to my decision once the four-year-old was brought into it. I would have been trying to reach some kind of compromise to make sure no one would be left coinless.

“So my family can all starve, is that it?” Callum’s face, already red, seemed to glow.

“Or you can find some other employment and perform it properly.”

“You know nothing!” Callum accused her, a vein pulsing in his forehead. “You weren’t born for that seat. That seat is meant for one born and bred here, one who understands and cares what this place is about. That is not you. Get out of that seat!”

“Calm yourself, Callum.”

“I will not calm myself! You holding that title is a . . . a . . . a miscarriage of justice. It’s unnatural. You have no right to that title. Get out of that seat!”

“You have my permission to withdraw, Callum.”

“I don’t need your permission for anything! Get out of that chair!”

The next thing we knew, he had punched Rikin in the face, a brutal blow right to the nose and mouth, and then he was rushing the throne. He pushed Bailey, who had instinctively stepped forward, right out of the way with so much force that Bailey fell and slid a short distance away. He grabbed Fiona by the shoulders, pulled her from the chair and sent her sprawling to the floor. “This isn’t your place!” he shouted, kicking her solidly in the stomach with his heavily booted foot. “You don’t belong here!” Another kick, higher and in the chest. “Get away! Go away!”

He pulled back for another kick, but Hiroki tackled him and sent him to the floor. Callum managed to dislodge him with a punch to the face. Bailey and Rikin, blood pouring from his nose, jumped on him and flattened him firmly to the floor.

“She’ll ruin all of us!” Callum shouted. “The Imperial Guards wouldn’t be here if we had a proper Karish in the title. She can’t stay here!”

Hiroki and Rikin dragged him, yelling all the way, out the door to the foyer. Everyone in the spectator seats was twittering and rumbling. They all looked excited, the prats.

And the Imperial Guards had done nothing but stand there, the useless bastards.

I knelt beside Fiona on the floor, where she was curled into a ball. I stroked back her hair for some reason. As though that would accomplish anything. “Can you move?” I asked her. “Does anything feel broken?”

“Get everyone out,” she gasped.

I stood and faced the greedy eyes of the spectators. “Her Grace will hear no more submissions today,” I announced. Now, what was a good way to tell them to get out? “She thanks you for coming and bids you good day.”

Not a one of them so much as shifted in their seats.

“Her Grace orders you to leave,” said Bailey.

That got people moving. As a Shield I was taught to be circumspect. I kept coming up against situations where a more direct approach was needed.

I sat back down beside Fiona, trusting Bailey to arrange for Healer Browne to come.

I couldn’t believe the proceedings had just exploded into violence like that. I was surprised that Fiona hadn’t handled it better, after practicing with Dane. Perhaps she had never been attacked before.

Well, I hoped she hadn’t.

I stroked Fiona’s hair until Dane came, at which point I withdrew. They deserved privacy. I went to my bedchamber so I could calm down after the violence I had seen. I didn’t deal well with brutality. It made me jumpy.

I learned later that Fiona had suffered no real injury, only pain and bruising. To me, that was bad enough. I’d never thought being a titleholder could be dangerous.

Chapter Eleven

I woke up extremely early the next morning. I couldn’t understand why I was waking up so early; it was very unlike me. I spent some time trying to determine what had woken me. I looked at Taro, who was sleeping deep and still on his side of the bed. I listened for any sound, but if there had been one, it wasn’t repeated.

There was a strange quality about the darkness and the silence, a quality that made me uneasy. I was unable to go back to sleep, though I tried for quite a while. At length, I slipped from the bed and dressed silently. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. The house was still asleep.

The library, I thought. I could stay out of everyone’s way for a while in there. I lit a candle in our sitting room and descended the stairs that took me to the court room. It was then that I came across a window that had been left unshuttered. Immediately beyond the glass was the thickest, darkest fog I’d ever seen in my life. I could see nothing else out the window, not even the grass growing immediately outside.

I couldn’t resist it. I ignored the library in favor of slipping through the kitchen to the back door and stepping out into that glorious, deep fog. The light of my candle rebounded off it. It seemed as though I could feel it against my skin. It was entrancing and eerie. I took a few paces out into it. I could see nothing, not the path that lay before the steps, not even the house that I had just left. How extraordinary.

I breathed it in. It felt different to breathe. I closed my eyes, just listening. I imagined I could hear the sea lapping against the rocky shore, the sound carried to me by the fog. I craved to walk out in it, but I wasn’t that stupid. I would too easily be turned around and would lose my way.

Dane wasn’t really being paranoid when he spoke of the dangers of this place. I could easily see someone ending up injured or dead by walking lost in the fog. I’d have to ask him at breakfast if there were any other life-threatening conditions inherent to Flown Raven. We could end up killing ourselves in ignorance.

There was an enticing beauty about it. It was inviting me to walk into it and be transported to a strange new world. High Scape had had nothing so entrancing as this.

I heard a scuffle, and the next thing I knew I was shoved from behind, hard, forcing me off the path and causing me to drop my candle. Then my arm was caught, pulling me this way and that, jerking me around, keeping me off balance so I couldn’t even strike a blow. I was pushed again, hard enough to send me tumbling to the ground. Then I was left alone. I heard some sort of scraping, and then nothing.

I heard nothing. I could see nothing. I didn’t know where I was in relation to the house. I was completely vulnerable to whoever had attacked me. I waited for another blow, and waited, and waited until I had to decide that my attacker had left.

Who had attacked me? Why? Who had I managed to infuriate this time?

How the hell was I going to get back?

All right, I didn’t have to panic. I wasn’t in any danger, as apparently my attacker had left. So no danger. Unless he chose to come back. I wasn’t going to think of that right then. I was going to stay calm. I was going to sit still and wait until the fog cleared. Daylight would burn it away.

I felt so foolish. How did I get into these predicaments? Was there something about me that called out for abuse?

If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start believing in things like bad luck.

It had to be my proximity to Taro. He called to trouble like a child to its mother. I just got caught in the cross fire. It wasn’t fair.

I was hungry and craving coffee. And I was chilly. I wasn’t dressed to be outside.

No, of course, it wasn’t bad luck, and it wasn’t Taro’s fault. I’d been stupid to go outside when I could see the fog was this thick.

On the other hand, I should have been able to stand right outside the door without any difficulty.

“Dunleavy Mallorough, where the hell are you?” I heard Taro roar. From behind me. I’d thought I was facing the house. Of course, that was assuming he was in the house.

Oh thank gods. “Keep talking!” I called as I rose to my feet.

There was a pause. Then he said, “What the hell are you doing out here, you madwoman? Did you leave all your good sense back in High Scape?”

“I’m always sensible.”

“The current evidence suggests otherwise. How did you come to be out here?”

“I’ll explain once I’m inside. Just keep talking.”

“Oh, I’ll keep talking, all right. It’s handy to have you forced to listen to me. Since when are you such an early riser anyway? And why do you never wake me up? Do you not understand how much fun we’re missing out on?”

Finally, I could see a glow in the fog, and a few steps later I was at the door. As soon as Taro saw me, he grabbed me by the hand and yanked me into the house, where he wrapped me in a tight embrace.

“Why do you keep doing this?” he demanded, speaking into my temple. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” I objected. “No harm done.”

“This time. You’ve got to be more careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

Taro scowled. “We have to call off the search.” He slung an arm around my shoulders and escorted me to the sitting room, where Fiona was stretched out on a settee with Stacin tucked in beside her and our own maid, Lila, attending to her.

“Dunleavy!” she called out as soon as she saw me. “What the hell are you playing at?” She gestured at Lila to pull the bellpull.

“I wasn’t being stupid on purpose,” I protested. Why did everyone assume the worst? “Why was there a search?”

“Because we couldn’t find you anywhere in the house,” Taro snapped.

“I take an early-morning walk over my land every single morning,” said Fiona. “It’s my way to reinforce my connection to the land.” That sounded very ritualistic to me. “The only things that prevent me from taking that walk are excessive wind and fog. Shame on you. Lila, go find His Lordship.”

I was embarrassed to have caused so much upheaval. “I was being careful,” I said. “I planned on going only a step beyond the door, and I did, but then I was pushed.”

Taro groaned and covered his eyes.

“You were pushed?” Fiona asked. “You’re sure you didn’t slip?”

“Positive. We had a sort of fight afterward.”

“What the hell does ‘sort of’ mean?” Taro demanded.

“It means there were no blows landed.” Or thrown, as far as I could tell. “The person just pushed and pulled me around until I was totally disoriented and then left.”

“What did he look like?”

“I have no idea. I couldn’t see him in the fog. I had an impression of dark cloth, that was all.”

“What about their voice? Did they say anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Damn it,” Taro muttered.

“This must have been some kind of prank,” I said. “I was in no danger. I just had to wait until someone found me.” And yet, though I felt compelled to dismiss the act as a joke gone wrong, I had difficulty believing that was all it was. This was the third odd, potentially dangerous event to take place just since my arrival. The paranoid side of my nature felt something must be going on.

“You were not necessarily safe,” said Fiona, stroking her son’s blond hair. “Sometimes people panic. You could have run off to somewhere dangerous, some of the rocky areas in the back, or onto the road. And these fogs can last for days. Who knows what kind of trouble you could have gotten yourself into?”

I resented the implications that I was getting myself into trouble deliberately. Really, I didn’t lack for attention, and that was the only reason I could think of for a person choosing to get into scrapes.

“Everyone knows to treat the dangers of the fog seriously,” continued Fiona. “I can’t think of anyone who would pull such a dangerous prank.”

I had nothing to say in response. Either I insisted on suggesting that the action had been a joke, contradicting my hostess, or I accused someone in Flown Raven of wanting to do me harm. Both options would make me look ill-mannered.

Dane came storming into the room. “What happened?”

“Dunleavy stood outside to admire the fog,” Fiona told him. “Then someone pushed her into it.”

“Are you sure you were pushed?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said with forced patience.

“Did you see who it was?”

“No.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Hm,” he said. And then he smiled with a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. “Maybe it was the harlin.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Lords, Dane, don’t start.”

“What? There’s said to be one around these parts.”

“You’re being ridiculous. This is a serious matter.”

“A harlin,” Dane said to me, “is said to have been the essence of a whale whose young were killed by human whalers. She takes the form of a human woman in order to wander about the land where whalers live, to kill the women who would bear the children who would take the whale’s children. She is said to be nothing more than a dark cloak riding the fog, with a form of the coldest mist you’ve ever felt. If she touches you, you’ll freeze solid and stay solid until spring, where you will melt into nothingness.”

“Stop trying to scare her, Dane,” said Fiona.

“That’s really not a problem, Fiona,” I said. “This person touched me, he didn’t feel cold, and I’m definitely still alive. And any children I have are not likely to be whalers.” If I had anything to say about it.