All the King's Men (2 page)

The royal seer’s soft footfalls fell silently on the marble
floor of Waldemar Castle as she crossed the main foyer to reach the stairs
leading up to the east tower. Although the place teemed with people, all but
the most cunning of courtesans gave the woman wide berth. For her part, she
ignored them all, even those who respectfully bowed as she walked past them.
Today she had more important business to attend to.

Beneath the supple soles of her shoes, the mosaic on the
floor of the main foyer depicted an ebony crown overlaid on top of a shimmering
spacecraft. As she stepped in the middle of the elaborate design, the image
shifted. A brief flash of light preceded a soundless burst. The representation
of the spacecraft shattered and the pieces of the mosaic reassembled into a
crown that now looked twice as large as it previously had. It flickered and
glowed, sending a low, throbbing pulse through the foundation of the castle.

Vida cast a cursory glance at the shifting pattern. She’d
seen it a hundred times, but it never failed to stir a shiver of restlessness
inside her. Even here, deep in the heart of the king’s home where no one would
dare disobey the edicts that had been passed down for generations, the message
was clear. Although the inhabitants of Aris acknowledged the technological
might of the rest of the universe and could even keep up with modern
advancements if they chose, only one force governed their planet. And that
force would never cater to the influence of lifeless machines.

The Tradition had served the people of Aris well for
countless millennia. Rooted in ancestral superstition and the ancient belief in
magic, it impacted every aspect of Arisian life. Yet of all the directives laid
down by the Fates who governed the Tradition, none were stronger or more
important than those regulating the king’s mating ritual.

Vida quickened her step as much as her loose flowing skirts
would allow. Any faster and she’d trip over the hem that brushed the surface of
the floor. Any slower and she’d be late.

She hurried up the gently curving steps leading to her
tower, her breath coming in harsher gasps at every landing. Her apprentice
Moreeya had been trying to convince her to move her chambers to a lower level
for the past year, but Vida refused. There was power to be drawn from the sky
and she wanted to be as close to it as possible when she called upon the
Tradition to guide her hand.

On the seventh landing, she pushed open a heavy wooden door
and stepped inside a narrow pathway that led into a circular chamber. Windows
flanked the room from all sides as well as from the top, opening the room to as
much natural beauty as the cosmos offered. Tonight, brilliant stars winked like
fireflies against the midnight velvet and the tri-colored moons of Aris shone
down upon the tower, casting a green, blue and red sheen through the thick
panes of glass.

“Mistress,” Moreeya said, dropping into a low bow when she
saw Vida. “Let me take your cape.”

Vida shrugged out of the heavy garment and handed it to her
apprentice. “Is everything prepared?”

A blush crept up Moreeya’s cheeks, deepening her dusky skin
to a dewy wine color. Her wide green eyes shone with barely contained
excitement. “Everything is exactly as you instructed.”

“Did you have any trouble gathering all the ingredients I
asked for?”

Moreeya swept a hand out in the direction of a rectangular
table of dark polished wood. “The cherries were a bit of a hassle this late in
the season, but no, mistress. The merchants in town were more than eager to
contribute in some small way to the king’s future.”

“And the rest? The nut butter and ambrosia? The honey cake?
You didn’t forget anything, did you?”

Moreeya staggered to a halt, her hand pressed to her chest.
“Mistress! I’d never fail you. I know how important this is. If the Tradition
doesn’t answer your call this time—”

“All of Aris will suffer the consequences,” Vida finished
for her. The seer blew out a deep breath on a shuddering sigh. “I don’t know
why the Tradition hasn’t granted Shivar a new mate. But I do know that without
an heir, the royal line ends with him.”

She scrubbed a hand over her face. Weariness settled deep in
her bones, sending a dull ache to pound through her body. She’d been calling on
the Tradition for almost a decade now, always on the night of the full moons as
custom dictated. Each time she dealt the cards, she prayed this time would be
different even as a part of her fiercely hoped the Fates would once again
remain silent.

Vida licked her suddenly dry lips. Perhaps that’s why the
Tradition had abandoned them. Her heart was no longer pure. She didn’t want
what was best for Aris. She wanted Shivar by her side and in her bed. Always.

But she wasn’t his mate. Since the king’s first bride had
fallen ill and perished almost twelve years earlier, Vida had filled the role
well enough. But she’d always known that one day the time would come for a new
queen to take her place at Shivar’s side. She held no illusions that it would
be her.

“I’ve prepared everything just as you instructed,” Moreeya
said. “The Fates will be pleased. They’ll answer your call this time. They have
to.”

Vida forced a smile onto her features. “No one really
understands the whims of the Fates. The Tradition has guided my hand for
centuries. In all that time, the magic has never stayed silent for longer than
a year, two at the most. This is unusual.” She swallowed past the lump in her
throat. “And dangerous.”

Moreeya looked as if she wanted to say something else but
wisely pressed her lips together. She pulled out a cushioned wooden chair. With
a sweep of her hand, Vida declined it. “I prefer to stand. It allows me to feel
the force of the Tradition as it swirls through me.”

Sheaves of parchment had been laid flat on the surface of
the table. Vida pushed them aside and reached for the deck of Tradition cards.
She called them
Tarot
cards as had the seer before her. There was
something magical about the way the word flowed off her tongue, as though
merely speaking it imbued the cards with supernatural abilities.

She shuffled the large deck deftly, passing the cards from
one hand to the other while Moreeya lit long tapered candles that had been
placed at exact intervals along the edge of the table. When the woman finished
with the candles, she reached for a wooden bowl and poured a thick, crimson
liquid into it from the mouth of a silver ewer. A sweet, aromatic fragrance
drifted upward to imbue the air.

From the corner of her eye, Vida saw Moreeya’s hands shake
as she poured. “Relax, child,” she soothed. “I’m the one performing the ritual
tonight. You’ve no reason to worry.”

“The Tradition can choose anyone, can’t it?” Moreeya asked.

Vida swallowed hard and nodded.
Almost anyone
, she
thought, but didn’t give voice to the lance of self-pity that jabbed through
her.

“Royal blood isn’t given preference?”

The seer lifted an eyebrow. “Are you concerned about being
chosen or not being chosen?”

The girl’s soft chuckle echoed pleasantly through the
chamber. Though she’d turned twenty-one the previous summer, innocence radiated
from her being, making her seem younger. “While I was growing up, the older
girls in the village assembled each night of the full moons. I saw them once as
they stood in a circle, the wind and dust whipping their naked bodies until
their skin turned red and raw. They held hands and chanted prayers, hoping one
of them would be blessed to be the king’s mate.”

“Superstitious nonsense.” Vida’s lips thinned as she
shuffled.

Moreeya ducked her head. Her mass of black hair swept
downward to hide her face. “Yes, mistress,” she whispered.

A pang of regret settled deep in Vida’s chest. It wasn’t the
girl’s fault that she, like every other woman on Aris, wanted to claim the
empty throne at the king’s right hand. And the empty spot in his bed.

Almost empty
, a taunting voice reminded Vida.
It’s
still yours…for now.

“The spread now please,” Vida requested as gently as she
could.

Moreeya did as she was told, grabbing three pieces of chalk
and drawing rectangular outlines over the surface of the table in the colors of
the moons. When the design was complete, Moreeya reached for a bowl of cherries
and tossed the perfumed fruit among the rectangles. A bowl of nut butter sat in
the center of the table. Bits of honey cake and slivers of ambrosia lay
scattered among the chalk design.

As before, the required ingredients had come to Vida in a
dream. She’d never questioned them in the past, having recognized each for what
it was—an item chosen specifically because the king favored it.

This time was different and the knowledge frightened her.
The nut butter was easy enough to identify as one of Shivar’s guilty
indulgences. Her cheeks warmed at the memory of his skilled hands spreading the
gooey mixture over her pebbled nipples then lowering his head to lick the sweet
treat and suckle the hardened buds into his mouth.

But the cherries, honey cake and ambrosia were a mystery.
She’d never seen Shivar delight in any of those. Oh he nibbled on a honey
pastry at breakfast from time to time, but she knew him well enough to be
certain he’d never count the saccharine treat among his favorites.

If she’d been more certain of her powers and the Tradition’s
faith in her, she might have questioned the added ingredients. As it was, she’d
decided to trust in the Tradition’s guiding hand. Every item on the table would
add to the power of the Tarot reading, though clearly the components that
connected directly with the king would be most useful.

A trickle of awareness shivered up her spine. Excitement
surged within her, blending with the anxiety knotting her stomach. Magic
rippled and undulated, an unseen force shimmering through the air, enveloping
her in the heady musk of power.

Vida quivered inside, but her hands never stilled their
motions. She feared even to breathe in case the Tradition pulled away,
abandoning the people of Aris yet again.

The cards flowed smoothly from one palm to the other until a
sudden jolt of energy halted her movements.

“Move aside.” She barely recognized the hoarse voice as her
own. “The Fates have elected to speak.”

Moreeya stepped backward a few paces. She wrung her hands in
front of her chest, her brow creased with worry.

Tears stung Vida’s eyes. She blinked rapidly, trying
desperately to hang on to the quivering threads of magic. Everything would
change after tonight. Shivar’s life and the life of his chosen would never be
the same.

Neither would Vida’s.

A thick book lay open on a stand beside the table, but Vida
didn’t need it. A low, throbbing hush settled over the room. The shroud of
ancestral magic guided Vida’s hands. She dealt the cards face up on the squares
Moreeya had drawn.

The images on the cards shimmered and came to life as they
drew energy from the items around them. A swirling cloud of red mist rose from
the bowl holding the liquid. It glided over the surface of the table, swirled
around the bowl of nut butter, dipped down over the honey cake and ambrosia
then finally spread over the cherries where it lingered, glimmering bright.

Vida forced herself to glance down at the spread she’d
dealt.

The first ten cards symbolized Shivar Waldemar’s past and
his present. The magic radiated through each one, telling a lifetime’s worth of
stories. Vida knew them all.

Her heartbeat quickened as she neared the end of the spread.
Only two cards remained.

She flipped one over and placed it in the middle, just below
the bowl of nut butter. The King of Wands sat proudly upon a golden throne. A
salamander twined around the scepter he held in one hand. His crown perched low
on his forehead, almost touching his brow. He stared at Vida with wide,
questioning blue eyes.

The seer nearly stumbled. Today, the King of Wands was the
spitting image of Shivar. In the past, it had looked like a lifeless
representation of a paper king, a man who didn’t exist and never would.

The room spun around her. She gritted her teeth. The cards
shimmered in her blurred, tear-filled vision.

She lifted the last card and prepared to let it drop when a
sudden movement from the King of Wands caught her eye. As she watched in horror
and fascination, three more men separated from within Shivar and lifted
themselves off the backing of the card.

They stood rigidly, their holographic forms shimmering in
the air. A slight squeak escaped Moreeya’s lips, sounding impossibly loud in
the hushed room.

All three men wore the uniform of the king’s Guardians.
Black
skellas
hugged their lean forms to perfection, showing off every
inch of powerful muscle that pulsed beneath the fabric. As one, they crossed
their arms over their chests and glared at Vida almost defiantly. Their purpose
was clear. They were there to protect Shivar from Vida and anyone else who
might wish him harm.

Like his mate?

Her throat closed up. A tear escaped to slide down her
cheek. Wiping it away with the back of her hand, Vida swore low under her
breath.

The card she still held in her hand began to pulse with an
electric force that traveled up the length of her arm. The tingling shock shook
her to her very core.

When it landed, she saw that this card didn’t represent any
of the seventy-eight suited Arcana, neither major nor minor. Instead of another
holographic image, a crystal-clear picture formed sleekly on its surface.

Vida’s heart shattered into a million pieces.

The woman was stunning. Framed in a wild mass of
chestnut-brown hair, her face was at once exotic and familiar, sensual and
delicate. But it was the sadness in her sapphire blue gaze that knocked Vida’s
breath from her lungs. Aris’ future queen stared up through the glossy sheen of
the card with such agony etched on her features that Vida nearly staggered.