Our healer, Madame Ar, is a strange woman. When I enter her infirmary with the cloth-wrapped body of the cave devil carried over my shoulders, she lets out a little squeal of delight and nearly falls over herself to get to me.
“Put it down over here!” she cries, clearing one of her worktables with a careless sweep of one arm. “Careful!” she qualifies when I drop my burden with a heavy thunk.
“It’s already dead, uggrha.” I step back and roll my shoulders. Cave devils are heavy bastards. “I don’t think it minds a little rough treatment.”
Madame Ar doesn’t hear me. She’s already circling the table, pulling the cloth back to expose the hideous head. “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of these for ages! Ah, see? Such a fine example of the hunag plating, which tells me this is a male of the species. The gulg is already beginning to solidify. It’s a good thing you got him to me so quickly, and . . . Oh, Vor.” She peels the cloth back a little further, exposing the various wounds lacing its hide. “Did you have to go slicing it to ribbons like this?”
Ar is one of the only people outside my immediate family who persists in calling me by my first name. I don’t mind. Hers was the first face I saw when she helped my poor suffering mother deliver me on the day of my birth. Though I don’t personally remember that moment, I can’t help thinking she’s earned the right to a certain familiarity.
“It was trying to eat me alive,” I offer. The look she gives me clearly states that’s the feeblest excuse she’s heard in an age. “Truly, Madame Ar, I’ve never seen a cave devil in a state like this. It seemed incapable of feeling either fear or pain. Can you tell me why?”
“With a little time and a little messiness, I should be able to formulate some theories,” she answers, then turns to the door. Hael is even now helping Grir into the room, Lur trailing behind them. Our healer’s face sinks. “I suppose you need me to fix all this first?”
“If you would be so kind, uggrha. I could use a few stitches myself when you have the opportunity.”
She takes in the cuts on my chest and sighs heavily. Though by far the most skillful healer in all Mythanar, she prefers to devote her time to her weird experiments. For the most part it’s best to leave her to it. Still, she beckons for Grir and Lur to take seats by the wall and sets to work gathering her salves.
As I sustained lesser injuries, I wander from Ar’s workspace to the back end of the infirmary where she keeps the sickbeds. Most are empty just now, but one figure sits in the bed nearest the window. He idly tosses a ball, sending it up among the stalactites in the ceiling and catching it one-handed as it falls.
“Well now, Yok. That arm is looking rather better.”
My young friend turns at the sound of my voice. His face breaks into a grin. “Vor! I mean, Your Majesty! I am much better, see?” He sits up, pulling down the sleeve of his robe. A neat row of stitches lines the muscle. The skin around it is still darkly discolored.
“That looks painful,” I say, taking a seat on the edge of his bed.
“It’s not too bad. Madame Ar initially thought she’d have to cut the whole arm off to stop the spread of poison, but she was able to purge it all in the end. I’m getting stronger every day now. See? I’m doing exercises.” He tosses his ball again, obviously proud of his dexterity, though it’s a simple enough maneuver. The smile he turns on me is infectious. I cannot help grinning back.
“Looks good to me. You’ll be back in the practice yard before you know it.”
“I hope to be well enough to ride with you, Your Majesty. When you go to fetch your bride, I mean.”
He speaks the words casually, oblivious to the sudden tightening in my gut. It’s been several days now since I’ve spared a thought for Ilsevel. Upon my return to Mythanar, the needs of the kingdom have kept me busy from the moment I open my eyes at lusterling until I finally drop to my bed in complete exhaustion at dimness. And that was before word arrived of a rabid cave devil in a nearby village.
Now Yok’s innocent comment brings it all rushing back to me. Ilsevel. The heartfasting. The passage of days and the countdown to her arrival. Time does not flow at the same rate in the human world as in the Under Realm. For all I know, her Maiden’s Journey has already completed, and she could even now be on her way to me.
“We’ll see when the time comes,” I tell Yok, and give his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Meanwhile, you focus on your recovery, agreed?”
I leave the boy with pleadings and promises still spilling from his lips and return to the front of the infirmary. There I wait my turn as Madame Ar patches up Grir and Lur. They both try to protest that the king should be cared for first, but I swiftly put an end to such nonsense. As though I can’t handle a little scratch compared to their gaping wounds! When my turn finally arrives, Madame Ar spreads a thick, gluey substance to bind the flesh together and issues stern warnings not to wash it off for three days at least. I agree and, once it sets, pull a shirt over my head and set out for my own rooms. I’m ready for a hot meal and a soft pillow and at least a few blessed hours of oblivion before I must face the cares of my kingdom once more.
I’ve taken maybe ten steps from the infirmary before a small voice echoes along the corridor behind me. “Your Majesty!”
Suppressing a sigh, I turn. A child dressed in the purple silks of my stepmother’s personal staff hastens to me and bows low. “Your Majesty the queen has requested you wait upon her at your earliest convenience.”
Gods. I’d almost rather face another cave devil than deal with my stepmother just now. But I can’t very well ignore her. “Yes, very well,” I say heavily. “Lead on.”
The child scampers back the way she came, and I stride in her wake. Queen Roh keeps a set of rooms in the west wing of the palace. She moved out of the official Queen’s Apartment the same day my father died but has maintained the role of queen so long as I have not taken a wife. Eventually, Ilsevel will be expected to take over her responsibilities, and I hope Roh will offer her assistance as my bride learns the ways of our people. I’m not counting on it.
I find my stepmother in her favorite sitting room beside a water-wall. The carefully channeled droplets trickle down the wall in streams, then flow away in a trench running along the edge of the room. The descending water is slowly carving elaborate but natural patterns in the living black stone. Sometimes, I think I can see an image taking shape—a great coiled dragon, its body wrapped in intricate and inextricable knots, its eyes wide and full of furious vengeance. Most of the time, however, it’s merely an abstraction of glistening shadows and grooves.
Roh sits amid a cluster of silent ladies, all of whom are hard at work spinning hugagug silk into fine, shimmering thread. The queen has never liked to be idle but maintains steady habits of productivity, which she expects to be modeled among her companions.
In stark contrast to the industrious women is a large, hulking shape seated off in the darkest corner of the room. I know who it is at once: Targ, the self-styled Priest of the Deeper Dark. A great favorite of my stepmother, he sits like a lumpy boulder, mostly naked and making no effort to cover himself. It’s deeply unsettling.
“Greetings, Stepmother,” I say as I enter the room.
She looks up sharply. “Hush!” she hisses, indicating Targ with a nod of her head. Then, beckoning, she holds up her cheek to be kissed. I’ve often wondered at this perfunctory demand for affection but grudgingly perform the salute, nonetheless.
“Is old Targ quite all right?” I ask in a lower voice.
“Of course, darling,” Roh responds, waving one of her ladies out of her seat and bidding me take her place. “He’s in deep va at the moment.”
“Why? Grak-va is past, and we’re well on our way to the high point of the holy cycle. There’s no need for him to spend so much time close to the stone.”
“Need? What is need to a man of faith?” Roh blinks innocently as she goes on winding hugagug fibers into her stone spindle. “A true man of the Deeper Dark would prefer to spend all his time in va. You would understand if you were more devout.”
More trolde is what she means. Roh will never quite forgive me for my human blood, which prevents me from entering into the deep va state. Or, in her mind, from ever being a true king of the troldefolk.
“Well,” I say, leaning back in my seat, “it would be difficult to rule a kingdom if I sat around like a lump all the time. Though I won’t lie, sometimes I’d much prefer to sink into a nice long nap.”
“The va state is not restful,” Roh snaps. “It takes intense concentration of mind, body, and soul. Again, not something you could comprehend.”
I repress a sigh. Best to put this little audience to an end, the sooner the better. “I understand you wanted to see me.”
Roh spins her thread, watching the heavy whorl of the spindle gyrate. “A messenger arrived while you were gone.” She glances at me again, watching the effect of her words. “From Lady Xag.”
My stomach drops. Lady Xag is mistress of Dugorim, the town closest to the Between Gate. It is her responsibility to pass on all messages traveling to and from our world. I know without asking what message she has passed on to me. But I need to hear the words, nonetheless. “Go on,” I say.
“It would seem Princess Ilsevel Cyhorn—such a name!—has completed her Maiden’s Journey, whatever that is. She is even now on her way here and will reach the Between Gate at dusk in three days’ time. Three human days, I presume. King Larongar bids you welcome her according to the agreement signed between you.”
Blood rushes in my ears, rolling around inside my head. Ilsevel. Part of me had honestly not thought it would ever come about. Not really. But now it’s happening. My bride is on her way. Sent from her world of open skies to enter into my shadowed realm. Will she wither in the darkness of Mythanar, like one of her frail Upper World flowers, starved of sunlight?
Will I be able to keep my promise to her sister?
Gods damn it. I’ve been trying so hard not to think that thought. As time passes, and the hour of my wedding approaches, I must focus on she who will be my bride. Ilsevel. Only Ilsevel.
But despite my best efforts, the image of Faraine creeps back in. Though I hate to admit it, I can recall the details of her face with much greater clarity than those of her sister. Will I ever be able to truly forget?
“I put the messenger in your receiving room,” Roh says, dragging my attention back to her, “and ordered refreshments be served.”
“Thank you, Stepmother.” I start to rise. “I don’t know why you felt the need to bring me here just to tell me that. I’ll take my leave—”
Her eyes flash, quick as two virmaer blades. “Don’t be foolish. I brought you here to try to make you hear reason one last time. I know I have little sway with you, hard-hearted as you are. You’ve always resented me for being your father’s wife, refused to accept all I might offer you as a mother and an elder. But I cannot in good conscience allow what is about to transpire without knowing I’ve done everything in my power to prevent it.”
“Prevent what?”
“This unseemly marriage of yours, of course.”
I lean forward in my seat, elbows on my knees, fingers interlaced. “Let me stop you right there. The council has already voted. Months ago. They agreed by majority rule on this course of action. For me and for Mythanar. For all the Under Realm.”
Roh stops her spindle abruptly, gripping it tightly with one strong hand. “Are you king, or aren’t you?”
I cannot let this woman goad me. “Thank you for your concern, Stepmother,” I answer, my voice level, my expression calm. “But it is needless. My course is decided. I will take my leave of you now.”
I rise, and she tilts her head back, narrowing her eyes up at me. “We do not decide our own paths, Stepson. It is the gods who direct our steps. Which god will you seek to guide yours?”
“I suppose I’ll let the gods figure that out amongst themselves.” I smile coldly. “Meanwhile, I’ll just have to keep doing the best I can.”
