The Beauty of Darkness (23 page)

There had to be a way.

Jezelia, whose life will be sacrificed for the hope of saving yours.

A different way.

I wrestled with Venda's words. Sacrifice my life for mere hope? I would have preferred more than that—like certainty. But hope was at least something, and as unsure as it was, it was all I had to offer Natiya and so many more. Not even Rafe could take that away. Like the stories that Gaudrel had fed Morrighan, hope was nourishment for an empty belly.

Jeb interrupted my thoughts, saying it was time to get ready for the party. Tavish and Orrin stood several paces behind him, staring at me curiously. I looked out at the practice fields, and all the soldiers were gone. A handful of stars were already lighting the sky. Orrin shifted, sniffing the air, but they all waited for me to make the first move to leave. The three of them had maintained a respectful distance all day, vanishing with skill, just as they had at the Sanctum, but still always there, still always watching.

It wasn't by their own volition they had taken on the task of escorts, as they claimed. I was certain it was by Rafe's orders. He was trying to shed his own embarrassment about having a parade of anonymous guards follow me. He knew I cared about these three—we had a history together—even if it was short. Nearly losing your lives together had a way of deepening bonds and lengthening time. I studied their faces. No, not guards. Their eyes were filled with the concern of friends, but no doubt if I saddled a horse to leave, they would become something else. They would stop me. Even under the guise of friendship, I was still a prisoner.

I gathered my skirts and got down from the wall. For the first time, I sniffed the scent of roasted meat in the air, and then remembered the lanterns being strung in the lower field earlier today, the canopy set for the head table, silk streamers draped between poles in anticipation of a party eagerly awaited by almost everyone. Jeb fell in by my side, and Tavish and Orrin walked just behind us.

Jeb picked at his shirt. Smoothed the sleeve. Pulled at his collar.

“Say it Jeb,” I told him. “Before you worry holes into your shirt.”

“His throne is being challenged,” he blurted out, voiced like a plea for his friend.

I heard Tavish and Orrin groan behind us, obviously not pleased with Jeb's loose tongue.

I rolled my eyes, unmoved. “Because of cabinet bickering? What else is new?”

“It's not the cabinet. One of his generals has begun proceedings to claim the throne.”

A coup d'état? My steps slowed. “So the Dalbreck court has traitors too?”

“The general isn't a traitor. It's within his rights. He's charging Prince Jaxon with abdicating, which everyone knows is a false claim.”

I stopped and faced Jeb. “His mere absence is interpreted as abdication?”

“Not by most, but it could be construed that way, especially with the general bandying even stronger terms around, like desertion. The prince has been gone for months.”

I bristled. “Why didn't Rafe tell me?”

“Both colonels advised him not to tell anyone. Dissent breeds doubt.”

I wasn't just anyone, but maybe Rafe didn't want me to doubt him most of all.

“Now that the general knows Rafe is alive, surely he'll stop those proceedings.”

Jeb shook his head. “A general tasting power? He probably has an appetite now for the full-course meal. But Rafe has the overwhelming support of the troops. Their respect for him has only grown. It shouldn't take long to quell the challenge once he arrives back at the palace—but it's one more worry on his shoulders.”

“And that's suppose to excuse his behavior of last night?”

“Not excuse,” Tavish said from behind me. “Just to explain it and give you a fuller picture.”

I spun around to face him. “Like the full picture you gave to Rafe when you caught Kaden holding my hand? Maybe
everyone
in Dalbreck needs to be sure of their information before they run off feeding it to others.”

Tavish nodded, accepting his culpability. “I made a mistake, and I apologize. I only reported what I thought I saw, but news of the challenge comes directly from the cabinet. This is not a mistake.”

“So Dalbreck has a usurper. Is that supposed to sway me? Why are Dalbreck's worries so much more important than Morrighan's? The Komizar rages with enough venom to make your general look like a whimpering kitten.”

My patience unraveled. The urgency, the long miles to Morrighan, the temptation to say yes when no still blared in my head, the needs of so many compared to the enormous lack within me—it all picked at every last shred of confidence I had until I felt like a frayed rope ready to snap—the last pull of weight coming from Rafe himself. If the person I loved the most in this world didn't believe in me, how would anyone else? My eyes stung, and I blinked back any show of weakness. “If anything, you'd think Rafe's situation would give him empathy and help him understand why I have to get back to Morrighan—but it doesn't seem he's given that a passing thought.”

“It's not his head he's thinking with,” Tavish said. “It's his heart. He fears for your safety.”

His words stabbed into my tender underside. “I am not a thing to be protected, Tavish, any more than he is. My choices—and my risks—are my own.”

There was nothing he could say. I was right.

They dropped me off at my tent. Percy and the other soldiers were already stationed there to take over.

“See you soon,” Jeb said, offering a hesitant smile. “First dance.”

“That will be reserved for the king,” Tavish reminded him.

Maybe not. Maybe there would be no dancing at all. At least not between Rafe and me. Kings and prisoners did not share dances, at least not in any world I wanted to be part of.

*   *   *

I lay across my bed, stripped down to the soft comfort of my chemise, writing down the verses from the Song of Venda that had been ripped from the book. After so many years, I was finally returning her original words where they were meant to be. They squeezed onto the back side of the torn page.

Betrayed by her own,

Beaten and scorned,

She will expose the wicked,

For the Dragon of many faces

Knows no boundaries.

And though the wait may be long,

The promise is great,

For the one named Jezelia,

Whose life will be sacrificed

For the hope of saving yours.

I remembered every word she had spoken that day on the terrace, though at first I had only been preoccupied with the phrase
whose life will be sacrificed.
Now another phrase caught my attention:
She will expose the wicked.

I fingered the burned edges of the book, and then the furious jagged tear of the last page that attempted to rip the words from existence.

I smiled.

Someone hated me very much or, maybe better, feared me, believing I would expose him—or her.

Fear. Anger. Desperation. That was what I saw in these burned edges and torn page. I would find a way to fuel that fear, because even though I knew desperation could make people dangerous—it also made them stupid. Exposing the highest players in this conspiracy was essential. If I fanned their fears, maybe they would choke and show their hands.

With Malich on his way to tell them about me, I had already lost the advantage of surprise. They would be fortified and waiting—now I'd have to turn that knowledge, at least in some small way, to my favor.

I set the book aside and fluffed some pillows, leaning back against them, contemplating how I would go about this without exposing myself. I had to stay alive at least long enough to find out who might be conspiring with the Chancellor and Royal Scholar. Maybe one of the county lords? Their influence was limited, but if I was lucky, I might be there in time for when the winter conclave assembled. Or maybe it was others in the cabinet? The Watch Captain? The Trademaster? The Field Marshal? The Timekeeper had always eyed me suspiciously, and he jealously guarded my father's schedule. Was it to keep him out of the way? I avoided the obvious—my father, who had posted the bounty for my arrest. He was many things, but he wasn't a traitor to his own people. He would have nothing to gain by conspiring with the Komizar—but was he an unwitting puppet? The solution seemed to be getting past the minions who surrounded his movements to speak directly to him—but that was a thorny problem too. Would it be safe?

I buried my fingers in the sable blanket at my side, balling the softness into my fist. There was the matter of his anger to deal with. I remembered Walther's words.
It's been almost a month, and he's still blustering around.
Even the much-adored Prince Walther had to sneak behind my father's back to help me when he planted the false trail for trackers. The several months that had passed would not have diminished my father's anger. I had undermined his authority and humiliated him. Would he even listen to anything I had to say without a shred of evidence to support it? I was branded an enemy of Morrighan, just like his nephew, whom he had hung. With only my word against a Chancellor who had worked with devotion at his side for years, why would he believe me? Without evidence, the Chancellor and Royal Scholar would turn my claims to make me look like a coward trying to wheedle out of my own culpability. The last time I had aimed even a mild insult at the Chancellor, my father became enraged and ordered me to my chamber. Would they use other, more permanent ways to silence me this time? My chest tightened with possibilities I couldn't untangle. Could I be wrong about everything? Rafe thought I was.

My brothers were my only hope for inroads, but they were young like me, only nineteen and twenty-one, and still low-ranking soldiers in the military. But if both of them pressed my father, maybe they could sway him to listen to me. And if not listen willingly, perhaps help me use more forceful ways to persuade him. Nothing felt beyond me right now, with so much at stake.

A second round of music drifted up from the lower pasture—the party was well under way. It was beautiful, urgent music, the ringing conversation of a thousand strings, a chorus of rebuttals, satin strummed gauntlets laid down again and again, the tone similar to our mandolins but with a deeper, lustier reverberation. The
farache
, Jeb had called it when he came to pick me up—the battle dance. I had sent Jeb along without me, saying I wasn't quite ready. Once he was gone, I told my guards I wasn't going at all and encouraged them to go and enjoy themselves, giving them my solemn oath I wouldn't leave my tent. I kissed two fingers and lifted them to the heavens as sincere evidence of my promise—then silently asked the gods to forgive my small lie. The godless oafs didn't budge, not even when I commented on how delicious the roasted meats smelled and their eyes danced with visions of suckling pigs.

I was nibbling on the pine nuts I had taken earlier when I heard the rattle of halberds outside my tent and the curtain was swiped aside. It was Rafe, dressed in elegant full regalia, his black jacket draped with the gold braids of his station, his hair pulled back, and his cheekbones burnished with a day in the sun. His cobalt eyes flashed brightly beneath his dark brows, and waves of anger rolled off him. He stared at me like I had two heads.

“What do you think you're doing?” he said between gritted teeth.

The warmth that had leapt beneath my breastbone when he entered quickly shriveled to a cold rock in my stomach. I glanced at the bowl next to me and shrugged. “Eating nuts? Is that against the rules for prisoners?”

His attention shifted to my scant attire, and his jaw grew impossibly more rigid. He turned, searching my room until his eyes landed on the midnight blue dress Vilah had hung on the dressing screen. He strode across the tent in three steps, snatched it down, and threw it at me. It landed in a heap in my lap.

His finger stabbed toward the tent door. “There are four hundred soldiers down there, all waiting to meet you! You are a guest of honor. Unless you want all of their opinions of you to match Captain Hague's, I suggest you get dressed and make the small effort of an appearance!” He stomped toward the door, then spun with one last order. “And you will not utter the word
prisoner
one time if you choose to attend!”

And then he was gone.

I sat there, stunned. My first thought when he had walked in the door was that he looked like a god. I wasn't thinking that anymore.

If you choose?

I grabbed my dagger and prayed for Adeline's forgiveness as I altered the dress she had lent me, and Vilah's forgiveness too as I pried free a long piece of chain from her chain-mail belt. I would attend the party just as he had asked, but I would attend as the person I was—not the one he wanted me to be.

 

CHAPTE
R
THIRTY-FOUR

RAFE

I slumped against the paddock rail, where the torchlights from the party didn't reach, and stared at the ground.

Quiet footsteps stopped near me. I didn't look up, didn't speak. It seemed every time I opened my mouth, I said stupid things. How was I going to lead an entire kingdom if I couldn't even sway Lia without losing my temper?

“She's coming?”

I shook my head, closing my eyes. “I don't know. Probably not after—”

I didn't finish. Sven could put it together without my rehashing every detail. I didn't want to remember everything I'd said. It was getting me nowhere. I didn't know what to do.

“She's still set on going back?”

I nodded. Every time I thought about it, fear gripped me.

More footsteps. Tavish and Jeb came up on my other side and leaned on the rail beside me. Jeb offered me a mug of ale. I took it and set it on the post, not feeling thirsty.