The Beauty of Darkness (31 page)

I watched the flames engulf my father's shroud, the fabric dissolving, the stacked tinder falling down around him to disguise the realities of death, the flames bursting higher as a revered soldier and king left one world and entered another, a whole kingdom looking on, watching me as much as the pyre. The weight of every gaze pressed with expectation. Even now I had to be an example of strength for all of them, assurance that life would go on as before. I stood between the towering pillars of Minnaub, an ancient warrior carved in stone on one side of me, and his rearing warhorse carved on the other, two of a dozen sculpted memorials that guarded the plaza, sentinels of a glorious history, and one of many of Dalbreck's wonders I had wanted to show Lia.

If she had come.

My face grew hot with the blaze, but I didn't step back. I remembered Lia telling me that Capseius was the god of grievances, the one I had brazenly shaken my fist at when I was back in Terravin, and I thought he was probably looking down at me now, laughing. The flames crackled and snapped, hissing their secret messages to the heavens. Black smoke rose and hovered over the plaza, and instead of offering up prayers for the dead, I dropped to my knees and offered them for the living, and I heard the gasps and whispers of those around me, wondering at a Dalbreck king falling to his knees.

The funeral hadn't been behind me three days before cabinet officers, barons, or other nobles began stopping in with their marriageable daughters conveniently in tow as they dropped off insipid messages that could have waited until our assembly meetings. “You remember my daughter, don't you?” they would say, and then they'd offer an introduction and a not-so-subtle résumé of her virtues. Gandry, the chief minister and my father's closest adviser, saw me roll my eyes after a baron left with his daughter and told me I needed to give marriage serious consideration, and quickly. “It would help quell doubts and add stability to your reign.”

“There are still doubts?”

“You were gone for months without word.”

Strangely, my guilt over my absence was gone. Regret, yes, that I hadn't been here when my parents died, and the extra worry it must have brought them, but I had done what no Dalbreck king or general before me had—set foot on Vendan soil and lived with its people for several weeks. It gave me a unique understanding of Vendan minds, needs, and machinations. Maybe that was why I felt the support of the troops, if not of the upper echelons of the court. I had led a mission of five soldiers who were able to outmaneuver thousands. It somehow felt necessary instead of reckless, but translating that feeling into something measurable for the cabinet and assembly to appreciate was another matter.

I closed the ledger on my desk and rubbed my eyes. The funds in the treasury were at an all-time low. I was to tour with the secretary of commerce tomorrow and meet with key merchants and farmers in an effort to increase trade—and coffers. I stared at the worn leather cover of the ledger. Something else still turned inside me. Or maybe it was many things, each so faint I couldn't articulate any one of them, and they pulled in different directions.

The office closed in on me, and I pushed back my chair and walked out onto the veranda. I still thought of it as my father's office, and his presence was evident in every corner, mementos of a long life and reign. These had been his meeting chambers since I was a child. I remembered when he called me in to tell me I'd be going to go live with Sven in just a handful of weeks. I was only seven, and I hardly understood what he was saying—I only knew I didn't want to go. I was afraid. Sven was invited in to meet me, stern and imposing and nothing like my father. Meeting him didn't help calm my fears, and I struggled to hold back my tears. Now, after all these years, I wondered if my father had done the same, each of us trying to be strong for the other. How many hard decisions had he had to make that I never knew about?

It was a rare moment for me to be alone. Every night, meetings ran into the dinner hour. I felt less like a king and more like a harried farmer trying to herd a field of loose greased pigs into a pen. I leaned against the thick stone rail, feeling the cool breeze ruffling through my hair. The night was brisk, the lit pillars of Minnaub glowing in the distance, the capital asleep, the thousand stars of the sky blinking over the dark silhouette of the city. The same view my father had looked upon countless times when he wrestled with the demands of his court, but his worries had been different from mine.

Is she there yet?

Is she safe?

And then, unexpectedly,
was she right?

Was that what continued to nag at me? Even back at the Marabella outpost, Colonel Bodeen and the captains had doubted her claim. In truth, I'd seen no evidence of a massive army, not in my tours of the city with Calantha and Ulrix or heard of it in the loose chatter in Sanctum Hall.

But I
had
seen the brigade of five hundred who escorted Lia into the city. That alone had been startling and unexpected, but it could have been the whole of their so-called army.

Except there were the tithes. I'd heard the governors grumbling, and yet they still came through with them. Was it just out of fear—or expectation of reward? There was no doubt that, like the Komizar, they wanted more. I'd seen it in their eyes when they looked upon the booty of the slain Dalbretch soldiers.

And then there was the flask, a strange, powerful liquid that had been able to damage an immense iron bridge with a single blast. That didn't fit with the image of a crude, impoverished city. A lucky fluke, Hague had called it, the result of poor Vendan craftsmanship. Maybe. There were a dozen maybes, no single one was so compelling that it pointed to the impossible—that a poor barbarian kingdom had raised up an army powerful enough to quash all the others combined. I had already pushed the limits of logic with the assembly when I dispatched troops to border outposts.

I heard the door to my meeting chamber open and shut, and then the rattle of a tray being set on my desk. Sven always anticipated what I needed. I thought about all the grief I had caused him in our early years together. All the times I had kicked his shins and run and he had scooped me up and tossed me over his shoulder, throwing me in a trough of water.
I am raising you up to be a king, not a fool, and kicking someone who can crush you in a single blink is the height of folly
. I was dunked more than once. His patience was greater than mine.

I kept my eyes fixed on the city, the seven blue domes of the chanterie barely visible. Another thump. A stack of papers. Sven brought me an itinerary each evening for the next day.

“A full day tomorrow,” he said.

As they all were. This was not news. This was more like the bang of a gavel proclaiming another day set in stone.

He joined me at the rail looking out at the city. “Beautiful, isn't it?”

“Yes. Beautiful,” I answered.

“But?”

“No buts, Sven.” I didn't want to go into it, the worry I couldn't let go of, the vague something that didn't feel right in my gut.

“I'm afraid you'll need to squeeze in one more meeting tonight that's not on the schedule.”

“Move it to tomorrow. It's late—”

“Merrick has the information you wanted. He'll be here within the hour.”

*   *   *

Before Merrick sat down, before he even entered my chambers, I knew what he would say, but I let it play out.
It is true, Rafe. Every word is true.
But I still held out hope for a fraud, an epic hoax penned by some sick mind in Morrighan. After pleasantries and a few explanations about his surprise at the age of the document, he pulled the worn leather sleeve from his satchel and returned it to me, then handed me another paper covered with his perfect scrolled lettering. An experienced scholar's translation.

Merrick accepted a small glass of the spirits Sven offered to him and sat back. “May I ask where you acquired this?”

“It was stolen from a library in Morrighan. Is it genuine?”

He nodded. “It's the oldest document I've ever translated. At least a couple of thousand years, or more. The word usage is similar to two dated documents in our archives—and the paper and ink are unquestionably from another era. It's in remarkably good shape for its age.”

But did it say what Lia claimed it did?

I read his translation aloud. With each word and passage, I heard Lia's voice instead of my own. I saw her worried eyes. I felt her hand squeezing mine, hopeful. I heard the murmurs of the clans in the square, listening to her. Word for word, it was the same as her translation. My mouth was suddenly dry when I got to the last verses, and I paused to drink some of the wine that Sven had poured me.

For the Dragon will conspire,

Wearing his many faces,

Deceiving the oppressed, gathering the wicked,

Wielding might like a god, unstoppable,

Unforgiving in his judgment,

Unyielding in his rule,

A stealer of dreams,

A slayer of hope.

Until the one comes who is mightier,

The one sprung from misery,

The one who was weak,

The one who was hunted,

The one marked with claw and vine,

The one named in secret,

The one called Jezelia.

“An unusual name,” Merrick said. “And if I recall correctly, it's the princess's name as well.”

I looked up from the page, wondering how he knew.

“The marriage documents,” he explained. “I saw them. You probably never even looked, did you?”

“No,” I said quietly. I had signed and ignored them, just as I had ignored her note to me. “But I'm told these are only the babblings of a madwoman?”

He pursed his lips as if thinking it over. “Could be. They're certainly cryptic and odd. There's no way to know for sure. But it's curious that a madwoman could accurately describe such specific things thousands of years ago. And the brief Morrighese notes that were tucked in with it confirm it was uncovered more than a decade after Princess Arabella was born. Early nomadic text in Dalbreck's historical record suggested something similar, in nearly identical phrasing—from the scheming of rulers, hope would be born. I always assumed it meant Breck, but perhaps not.”

The steadiness of his gaze told me more than his commentary. He believed every word.

I felt a beat like a warning, the juddering that crawls through your bones when a horse is galloping toward you.

“There's a little more on the next page.”

I looked down at the papers and shuffled the top one aside. There were two more verses.

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.

Sacrificed?

This
Lia had never shared with me.

Had she known all along?

Rage shot through me, and right on its heels, gutting fear.

It is true, Rafe. Every word is true.

I stood and walked to one end of my chamber and back again, circling around my desk, my head pounding, trying to make sense of it.
Betrayed by her own? Beaten and scorned? Sacrificed?

Dammit, Lia! Damn you!

I grabbed tomorrow's schedule and threw it against the wall, papers flying to the floor.

Merrick stood. “Your Majesty, I—”

I brushed past him. “Sven! I want General Draeger in my chamber first thing in the morning!”

“I believe he already has—”

“Here! By dawn!” I yelled.

Sven smiled. “I'll see to it.”

 

CHAPTE
R
FORTY-FOUR

KADEN

I used to go to market with my mother. Isolated on the estate, I didn't get to see much of the world, so the market was a place of wonder to me. We traveled on this same road in the wagon with the cook. My mother bought supplies for my lessons with my half brothers—paper, books, inks, and small bags of candied peels as rewards for a week of diligent study.

She always bought something just for me too. Strange small gifts that fascinated me—trinkets of the Ancients that had no purpose or meaning anymore, thin shiny disks that caught the sun, brown coins of worthless metals, battered ornaments from their carriages. She told me to imagine their greater purpose. I kept them on a shelf in the cottage, carefully arranged treasures that held my imagination and took me to places beyond the grounds of the estate, objects that grew in wonder and helped me imagine a greater purpose even for myself—until one day my eldest brother snuck into the cottage and stole them all away. I caught him just as he was dumping them down the well. He wanted me to have nothing. Less than I already did.

It wasn't the last time I cried. A year later, my mother died.

Less was all I'd ever had, or been. Even now. I was nothing. A soldier without a kingdom, a son without a family. A man without—

The day Lia and Rafe had parted churned in my thoughts again, as it had so many times before, like a piece was missing, something I didn't understand. When she'd left Rafe to join us on the trail, her face was like a piece of stone sculpture with a thousand tiny cracks in it, a sightless stare, her lips parted, frozen the same way a statue might be. In the past months, I'd thought Lia had looked at me with everything her eyes could hold—hatred, tenderness, shame, sorrow, vengeance—and what I'd thought might be love. I'd thought I knew the language of Lia, but the look she'd had in her eyes the day she left Rafe behind, I had never seen.