Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (16 page)

Gillard pulled at the ruffled cuff of his blouse beneath his gray doublet
sleeve. “You’ve heard about Abramm, I presume?”

“I’ve heard a lot of nonsense and lies?”

“Oh, I don’t know. More than Guardians saw him, after all. I think he has
gone mad, and no surprise there.” He took her arm to steer her around.
“Come.”

She shook free of him. “Stop it! I mean to see Ray, and I’ll stay here until
I do.”

Again pain flashed across his face. “Ray is not in any condition for-“

“Perhaps not,” she interrupted, “but he knows a good deal about what’s
going on, and I intend to have some answers.”

He cocked his brow again, and the pale eyes hooded. “Do you, now?”

“Don’t be snide, Gillard.”

He regarded her a moment, then relented, his mien softening. “Carissa,
I’m serious. He’s … on the edge.”

“On the edge of … oh.” With understanding came renewed disgust.
“First Abramm’s mad, and now Ray. How convenient for you.”

“It is not like that.” His voice was soft and low. Suddenly he looked like a
lost little boy, and she recalled then that he hadn’t even reached his twentieth year. For all his size and bluster, he was in many ways still a child. “Spend five
minutes with him,” he added, “and you’ll understand.”

She frowned, disconcerted by this uncharacteristic vulnerability-and
abruptly afraid. Drawing her dignity about her like a shield, she tossed her
head. “I fully intend to, little brother.”

As she started by him, he pressed a hand to her arm. “Riss, look at his
eyes.”

She stared up at him, frozen, searching for the flicker that would belie his
words. She found none-no bravado, no smugness, no teasing. Only genuine
grief. He released her and strode away, booted feet smacking the gleaming
parquet floor.

As he disappeared down the stair, the door to the royal apartments
opened again and the chamberlain called her in.

The royal sitting room was high ceilinged and grandly sized, like all the
palace rooms, dwarfing furnishings and inhabitants alike. Blue-and-whitestriped, satin-upholstered chairs and couches stood on thick, blue, brushedthread carpeting of paisley design. Dark tables decked with flowers or statuary provided accents. On the hearth a fire burned unnoticed. Her older
brother awaited outside on the balcony, facing outward, arms braced on the
stone balustrade.

Birdsong greeted her as she stepped through the glass-paneled balcony
doors and joined him. He did not acknowledge her presence, so she waited in
silence, hands resting lightly on the railing.

A black-and-white terrace stretched below them, deserted in the foggy
morning. Normally one could see Kalladorne Bay and the port from this vantage. Today, cedars spired half-hidden through the mist on the terrace’s far
side. On its near, uphill side an ancient oak lifted gnarled branches bright with
spring leaves and alive with a flock of sparrows. In the distance the university
clock began to toll, and from the room behind, the mantle clock started up
as well, a beat behind its larger, deeper cousin.

As the last strike faded, Raynen spoke. “They watch me all the time, you
know. The birds.” He stared at the oak, the sparrows chirping and hopping
and fluttering from branch to branch. “They watch and laugh.”

Carissa flicked a startled glance at him. She could not see his eyes from
this vantage, but the rest of him testified to his distress. His blue doublet
wrinkled off drooping shoulders, as if he had slept in it. Above the line of his beard, the usually clean-shaven cheek bristled with days-old growth. Deep
crevices pulled downward from his nose and eye, and his skin shone as pale
and translucent as the fog that swirled around them.

“They tell me to jump,” he went on, still staring. “Then they laugh at me.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “Come on, Ray. Let’s go in.”

He glanced down at her and she recoiled. His eyes crouched in deep shadows, red-rimmed and bloodshot, and curving along the edge of his right iris
rose a pale crescent of curdled tissue.

The sarotis.

They had been watching for it since Raynen had converted to the Terstan
religion six years ago. Meridon’s influence, Gillard had said, and she did not
doubt it. Raynen held the Terstan in altogether too high an esteem. Now he
was paying the price.

“You see it, don’t you?” he whispered.

Horror closed her throat. Her vision misted and she looked away, blinking
back tears. He turned and stalked back inside.

Plagues! Gillard was right. She had heard rumors of Raynen’s increasing
paranoia, his hallucinations, his fits of temper, and recently, the talk of suicide….

She glanced at the birds in their foliage-bright tree. They had gone still
and silent. She swallowed and, drawing a breath of resolve, followed her
brother into the palace.

He was slumped before the sideboard, pouring himself a drink with shaking hands. Kiriathan whiskey. At nine o’clock in the morning.

“You haven’t asked me how Therese is.” He tossed off the red-gold liquor
in one gulp, the cuff of his sleeve sliding back to reveal a scab-crusted sore on
his wrist. Her eyes fixed upon it, new horror piling upon old.

He slammed the glass onto the sideboard with a loud crack, then turned
to brace both hands and backside against the cabinet, rheumy eyes fixed upon
her.

“I didn’t know there was cause for concern,” Carissa replied hastily.
Therese was Raynen’s wife, now six months pregnant with what everyone
hoped would be his firstborn son and heir. “Is she all right?”

“Went into labor last night. Delivered the child this morning. Dead. Like
the others.” His voice was flat, his words driving like spears into her breast.

Stunned, she sank into a blue-striped chair. “Oh, Ray…”

He laughed, the odor of alcohol wafting from him. “It’s my punishment,
you see. Don’t dare cross the Mataio or they see that you pay. Her nurses say
there’s been a lot of bleeding. She may die.” He sighed. “Perhaps I should end
it all, just as the birds tell me.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“Nonsense?” He waved a hand. “What do you know?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem.” She gripped the chair’s wooden arm and
leaned toward him. “What’s going on, Ray? Why did Meridon kill that Initiate? And what’s happened to Abramm? I cannot believe he is mad.”

“Why not? I am.” Raynen crossed his arms and met her gaze evenly. `And
it’s certain Abramm has seen horrors that would unhinge the stoutest mind.”
His eyes lost focus, and he dropped his chin to his chest.

Carissa stared at the wall above him. No wonder Gillard grieved. He was
watching the brother he had looked up to all his life crack apart.

“Trap didn’t kill that Initiate, you know,” Ray said abruptly. “Rhiad probably did it.”

“Rhiad! Why?”

Ray lifted his head. “Abramm was close to figuring out who Saeral really
is. They needed to distract him and to discredit us. It worked against them,
though, for it drove him to trespass into the depths of the Keep and find the
truth. He surely looked into the face of evil, and they caught him. I sent Trap
to pull him out….” His gaze wandered the room; then he closed his eyes
and drew a deep, shuddering breath. Ah, what have I done? My loyal friend.
My own brother?”

His face convulsed with agony, and he stalked halfway across the room,
swayed a moment, and collapsed onto a white satin couch, face in his hands,
harsh sobs ripping the silence.

Carissa gaped at him. What had he done? She sprang to his side and
gripped his arm, giving it a little shake. “What’s happened, Ray? What are
you talking about?”

He shook his head, mumbled into his hands. “Why did I listen to him?”

“Listen to who?” Her fingers pressed the steely muscle beneath his velvet
sleeves. “Raynen, for Haverall’s sake, tell me what you did!”

He regained himself, sniffed, and raised his head. “Saeral is a pawn of the
rhu’ema. He meant to possess Abramm. I had to get him away, so I sent Trap
to free him, supposedly to take him into exile.”

She released him and sat back, struggling to make sense of his words.
“Captain Meridon? But he was executed-“

“Not him. A substitute.”

The words took a moment to register. A substitute? Plagues, Ray? You
killed an innocent man on that block this morning?”

The king shrugged. “Hardly an innocent-he was awaiting execution for
strangling his wife and children.” He lapsed into silence, staring at his lap.

Carissa frowned. “So Meridon was with Abramm when he fled?”

“Yes. He’s the one who probably got Saeral-assuming the snake is truly
injured, of course. He was to take Abramm to the river, where he was told a
vessel would carry them out to one of my ships. Only…” He looked up at
her. “Understand, Carissa, I did what was best for the realm. If either of them
ever came back, the kingdom would be driven into chaos. I had to let Gillard
do it.”

“Do what?” It was all she could do to keep from shrieking at him.

“He sold them to the night ships.”

She gaped at him, stunned. “You sold your own brother into slavery?
He’ll die, Raynen. He’s obviously Kiriathan. Some Esurhite will buy him for
their Games, and they’ll kill him.”

“Not the Games. He’s too weak for that.”

“So he wastes away laboring in a salt mine. What’s the difference? You’ve
as much as murdered him, either way.”

The king’s face crumpled, and he hunched over again. “Aye.”

She looked away, feeling ill. At her side a Thilosian vase sat on the end
table, eggshell thin, lime green and orange swirling around blood-splotched
flowers. It magnified the nausea swirling in her … then triggered a sudden,
pulse-quickening notion.

“Windbird is nearly ready to go,” she whispered. “He’s only been out a
day. If we sail tomorrow, I can buy him back in Qarkeshan and-“

“N&” Raynen gripped her arm, his bloodshot eyes wide, the lightning
shift of his emotions unnerving. “No. Don’t you see? Saeral wants him. Saeral
would possess him, rule through him.”

“Ray-“

He shook her arm, fingers biting into her flesh. “You must tell no one? If
Saeral learns the truth, he’ll go after him. Abramm cannot come back,
Carissa. You must forget him.”

She stared at him, filled with the desire to jerk away and wash herself

“Promise me you’ll not go after him. Promise me.”

“Never?”

“Carissa-“

A bird chirped loudly on the balcony, and he wrenched around. Sparrows
perched along the railing like judges on a bench, all of them staring inward
with bright, watchful eyes. Raynen erupted with an inarticulate cry and ran
to seize the poker from the rack of hearth tools. “The door?” he exclaimed,
fighting to untangle the rod from its holder. “You forgot to shut the door.
Now they’ve heard us.”

He wrenched the poker free, the rack falling with a crash as he lurched
into the table at Carissa’s side. The Thilosian vase shattered on the floor,
green, orange, and red shards spraying the carpet. He ignored it, rushing to
the balcony, swinging his poker in wide, frantic arcs. “Get out! Get out!”

The sparrows exploded upward in a whir of wingbeats and took shelter
in the oak tree. Raynen stared at them, panting. When he returned he closed
and locked both doors, then drew the drapes. “They’re his servants,” he told
her, turning. “He sends them to spy on me. He’ll send them after you, too.
You must be careful.”

Footsteps thundered in the adjoining apartments and the chamberlain
burst into the room, stopping abruptly, the other servants clustered at his
back. His gaze flicked from Raynen to Carissa. “Is anything amiss, Sire?”

“No, Haldon. Thank you.”

“The vase fell,” Carissa offered.

Haldon noted it and beckoned for a page. As the lad ran for broom and
pan, another servant stepped through the side door, holding an auburnhaired, freckle-faced boy by the ear. “Were you aware you were being spied
upon, Majesty?”

Raynen went rigid, his gaze fixed upon the youth. “Not you, Philip. Of
all people, not you?”

“Your Majesty, please?” the boy cried. He appeared to be in his early
teens. “I … it wasn’t intentional and-“

“Why were you spying on me? Who paid you?”

“No one, Sire.”

“I’m sure he meant nothing by it, Majesty,” the chamberlain said. “Give
him a caning or a night with the dungeon rats, and he’ll learn better.”

The boy paled, looked from one to the other of them, and then, for a
moment, intently at Carissa. He had round gray-blue eyes, an upturned nose,
and he looked familiar.

Suddenly he kicked the shin of the man who held him, twisted free, and
fled back into the other rooms. The servants gave chase, all manner of thuddings and shoutings erupting from the rear apartments.

Raynen stood death-pale, eyes fixed upon the doorway through which the
boy had fled. He drove a hand through his hair and began to pace, shaking
his head. “Not Philip. I can’t believe it. But you never know. He is so powerful. He can have anyone. Anyone.”

He looked up, his red eyes haunted. “Remember that, Riss. He watches
us always, even here in my own chambers. Light’s grace? What am I to do?
Spies on every hand, trusted men turned against me, my own family.”

The chamberlain touched Carissa’s arm and leaned close. “Milady, I think
it would be wise if you left. He will not notice-“

Raynen cried out and hurled the poker at the balcony door. It bounced
off the velvet drape and clanged to the floor. “Stop laughing. Stop laughing?”
He put both hands to his ears and fell to his knees.

Carissa glanced at the servant and nodded, then withdrew, using the
man’s body to shield herself from the king’s view.

Outside in the gallery she paused and leaned shakily against the doorjamb,
her middle churning.

Sarotis. It was true. He was finally going mad, and Abramm was on his
way to Qarkeshan because of it.

Her eyes fixed on the portrait of the blond-haired boy on the wall across
from her. Memory flashed of Gillard smirking at it earlier. He had suggested
this horrid plan, she was sure of it. The one to carry it out, the one who stood
to benefit….