Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (48 page)

Uncomfortable, Denellin shifted in his seat. ‘Please, Lady Elindorien, compose yourself.’

‘No!’ Another scalding tear fell. ‘I will
not
compose myself! I will
not
be calm and restrained and dignified when there is a reiver loose, who can do this –’ she shook her raised arm ‘– and this –’ she flung an illusion into the air of a procession bearing twenty-four linen-wrapped corpses towards unlit pyres, and peppered it with more images: Chapterhouse’s failing shields, Donata’s horrified face frozen in death, the yammering horde of demons attacking unarmed men ‘– and you will do nothing to stand against him. Don’t you see? This affects all of us, every one. If the Veil is brought down there will be nowhere left for us. We will be rendered as defenceless as they were, and if we isolate ourselves now, who will we turn to for aid when the demons come for us?’

‘Daughter.’

The Queen’s voice was incisive, steely as a blade. Dashing the back of her hand across her cheeks, Tanith faced the highest Seat of them all.

‘Majesty?’

Queen Emelia was the eldest member of the Court, a reed-like woman in a gauzy pearl-grey gown that draped her seated form like dusty cobwebs. Her white hair was piled atop her head, held in place with long pins from which crystal ornaments danced and sparkled with her slightest movement. Yet there was nothing fragile or ephemeral about her face. It was handsome – aquiline, even – rather than beautiful, save for her eyes. Large and luminous as tiger-jade, they fixed Tanith in place as if she was a moth skewered on one of those very hairpins.

‘You speak with great conviction, Daughter. Your passion does you credit, even if it is at some small cost to the dignity of these proceedings.’ A blush heated Tanith’s cheeks but she kept her head up, the anger and frustration boiling inside her hotter by far. ‘You are quite correct when you say we are part of the Empire and that we have profited from it over many years. But the troubles it faces now are not our troubles. They are of human making, therefore humans must find their own solution. We cannot provide a solution for them, nor will I risk harm to any more of our people by further embroiling them in the troubles of men.’

Shock drove words into Tanith’s mouth. ‘But the Veil—’

‘The Veil, Daughter, is as strong as it has ever been. I have examined it myself.’

Any hope Tanith had held that the Queen would hear her faded. Mastering her disappointment before it showed on her face, she asked, ‘And the reiver?’

‘He is human, you said? Humans have not possessed the power to rend the Veil in a thousand years, not since the northern clans were broken and their talisman lost. What damage he can do is inconsequential compared to the future facing our people.
Your
people,’ Emelia added, with a fraction more steel. ‘Let the humans mend what humans have wrought.’

She sat back, refractions from the crystals in her hair jewelling the floor.

Tanith looked around the chamber again. Berec and Denellin, who had no daughters of their own and whose granddaughters were mere infants, stared back impassively. Taren, whose sons had yet to produce any progeny, looked past her. Likewise the High Seat of House Nevessin, a widower whose family tree was so tangled it might take the Chancellor a generation to find a female heir. The representative of House Ione did not attempt to meet her eye, nor did any of the others save Morwenna, the High Seat of Ailric’s House, in the last seat. The only other woman amongst the Ten, nearly as old as Emelia, she gave Tanith a sad ghost of a smile and shook her head.

Tanith took a deep breath, surprised to find her trembling had ceased. It was over. But at least she’d fought for them.

‘Majesty.’ She curtsied deeply. ‘High Seats of the Court. I thank you for your indulgence in hearing me. I only regret that your self-interest and insularity blinds you to the dangers before you. Perhaps you will heed my words before it is truly too late for us all.’

Turning her back on their outraged exclamations, Tanith walked from the speaker’s circle with her head up, her back straight, heading not to her seat but to the tall double doors behind the Chancellor. There was no point in staying: she would not receive a fair hearing now, no matter what she said. Out of the doors she strode, along the marble corridors flooded with the endless sunlight that felt so very cold today, past startled court officials and dozing heralds. Down the palace steps, her footsteps quickening until she lifted her skirts and ran across the mossy lawns. Ran back to the serenity of her house, slammed the door behind her, fell to her knees and wept.

The sun was setting when her father came to her. Tanith heard him close the door, heard his steps pause in the hallway as he no doubt noted the packed saddlebags, the good warm cloak folded atop her riding leathers. The bow and quiver leaning against the wall.

She wrapped her arms tighter across her chest and stared out over the Mere, bronzed by the sunset. She would not cry again. Her weeping was done and there was no point in any more.

‘Tanith?’

When she said nothing he moved closer, the sound of his footsteps changing as he stepped onto the terrace but came no further.

‘Daughter?’

Out on the lake a saelkie popped its head from the water then dived again with scarcely a ripple to mar the molten surface. A pang of loss pierced her heart. If the Veil fell, the saelkies would not be safe either.

‘They wouldn’t listen, Papa. They heard me out, but they wouldn’t listen.’

‘So I hear,’ he said wryly. ‘You caused quite a stir. When I said you would shake the Court to its foundations, I did not expect you to begin with your presentation address.’

‘What better time? Begin as you mean to continue, it’s the surest way to succeed.’ Bitterness twisted her mouth and she clamped it shut, blinking treacherous wetness from her eyes. She would
not
cry!

‘You knew it would be difficult. Berec and Denellin, Morwenna, they have all sat at Court for many years. They would not have been easily shifted from their position.’

‘They’ve sat there so long they’ve ossified,’ she spat.

‘Perhaps if you gave it some time, tried to speak to them individually when things have calmed down—’

Tanith shook her head. ‘It’d take too long. Besides, I refuse to grovel in front of the Court and apologise for
their
inability to see what’s in front of them.’

‘Tanith—’

The chiding tone was enough to whirl her around, her braided hair bouncing off her shoulder.

‘No, Papa! Don’t tell me I was rude, or how many rules of the Court I broke. I had to speak as I did, from my heart, because I know no other way. I had to try to make them see the threat Savin poses – not just to Astolar, or to the Empire, but to everyone who walks the earth and breathes its air.’ Tears broke through her resolve, trembling on her lashes, ready to fall. ‘He endangers everyone, Papa.’

Lord Elindorien was silent, face schooled to stillness. He looked out over the Mere, tawny eyes faraway. Across the water, shadows lengthened, the trees whispering in the evening breeze.

‘May I see it?’ he asked at last. ‘The hurt you took?’

Tanith pushed up the sleeve of her robe and offered her forearm. With the sunset’s colours masking its redness the scar did not look quite so ugly, but only she knew how deep the wound went.

Lord Elindorien traced its course from elbow to wrist with cool fingers. ‘It was not Healed.’

‘Too many other injured needed help for the Healers to waste their time on me.’
Lying to my father. Oh, spirits, is this what I have become?

‘How?’

In a heartbeat she was back on the parapet with a longsword in her hands as Gair spread his arms and took up the shield that two dozen Masters couldn’t hold. Did he even know what he had achieved that day? Did he know how many lives he had saved, at such cost to himself?

‘Demons attacked Chapterhouse,’ she said. ‘They broke through our shield. We had to fight them, hand to hand, until it was restored.’ She shivered, cold despite the warmth of the evening. ‘I was defending people who couldn’t defend themselves.’

‘You never told me.’

‘I didn’t want to talk about it.’ She pulled her sleeve back down, hiding the scar from sight, though she would never be able to hide what it represented. Not from herself, anyway. ‘I still don’t.’

‘That was a brave thing to do.’

‘I was far from the bravest that day. I saw children defending each other with hoes and rakes from the kitchen garden. I saw a woman torn apart—’ She broke off, turned away, eyes searching for something, anything else to look at but the image rising from her memory that made her eyes burn.
Oh, Gair, I’m so sorry
.

A long pause followed. The sun had dipped behind the hills above Belaleithne Falls, turning the Mere steely as the mist stole out of the distance and covered the water like a veil.

‘Must I lose you again?’ her father asked quietly. ‘So soon after your return?’

‘There is nothing more I can do here,’ she said. ‘I’ve shown the Court the danger facing us and they refuse to see it. The Guardians are doing what they can, they’ll continue to patch small tears in the Veil, but the only sure way to save it is if we find Savin, or find the starseed before he does.’

‘So where will you go?’

‘Mesarild, to warn the Emperor.’

‘That’s over three hundred leagues.’ More than six hundred miles, as humans reckoned it – some fifteen days on horseback, with a single mount and some care. Her father clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Tanith, are you sure?’

‘I’ll go through Bregorin. If I can find a guide I’ll be there in less than a week.’

‘Travel the wildwood? And what then? Will Theodegrance be any quicker to understand what a threat to the Veil means? The humans do not trust the Song as we do, Daughter. They see it as something evil.’

‘Not all of them, Papa. I’ll just have to find a way to make them understand.’ Brave words when she’d failed so utterly with her own people, but she had to try.

He frowned, narrow brows drawing down. ‘Will the Emperor even see you?’

‘I think I have enough titles in my pedigree to guarantee an audience. If not . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll seek out the Warlord. An Arennorian clansman will pay heed to the Veil even if Theodegrance will not.’

A smile alleviated some of the gravity in her father’s face, gave a little light back to his eyes. ‘Oh, my daughter, I would that your mother were here, to see what a firebrand the fruit of our love has become.’

‘Papa?’

‘When she passed on you were still a little girl in ribbons,’ he said. ‘If she could see you in riding leathers, with a dagger in your belt and a bow on your shoulder . . .’ He turned and took her hand in one of his, pulling something from his pocket with the other. ‘I believe she would be proud of you.’

Into her palm he poured a number of pearl buttons, some still trailing fragments of white thread. Closing her fingers over them, he added, ‘She hated court gowns, too.’

Tanith flung her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she whispered into his neck.

Taken aback, Lord Elindorien was slow to return her embrace. He did so a little awkwardly, as if uncomfortable to be displaying such open emotion, but when they stepped apart to arm’s length once more, Tanith detected an uncharacteristic thickness in his voice as he spoke.

‘Will you not take an escort?’

‘What do I have to fear from the woods of Bregorin? Besides, I can move faster alone, without tents and trumpeters.’

His eyebrows twitched. ‘Not even a handmaid? You are a lady of the Court, after all.’

She laughed. ‘Papa, I survived five whole years at Chapterhouse without a maid. I think I can manage a ride in the forest.’

He held up his hands, conceding. ‘Very well. I would be happier if you were not alone, but you are no longer a child. When do you intend to leave?’

‘Tomorrow. First light.’

‘Then may benevolent spirits attend you until you return.’ Gravely, Lord Elindorien kissed her on each cheek. ‘I will take your seat at Court again as your regent.’

‘Thank you. They’ll probably be relieved to see you after what I said this afternoon.’ She bit her lip, suddenly unsure how to explain why she wasn’t the daughter he’d hoped for. ‘I know this wasn’t what you wanted for me, Papa. I know you expected me to marry well and take my place at Court as Mother did, but this is important. I have to do this.’

He smiled. ‘I think I understand better than you know, daughter mine. After all, I married your mother – against her father’s wishes, I might add.’

Surprised, she said, ‘I never knew that.’

‘Yes, he had an Amerlaine boy in mind, I believe, not some upstart younger son of a very minor House.’ He took her hands back into his and this time she saw his heart in his eyes. ‘But he could no more deny his daughter her heart’s desire than I can deny mine.’

‘Oh, Papa.’ She kissed him again, feeling fresh tears brimming. Loving ones this time, not the bitter juice of frustration.

‘Only promise to come back to us, Tanith. If we are to survive this age, Astolar needs you and daughters like you.’