Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) (13 page)

“
Of course I am.” The Duke bowed, smiling. “You are ambitious, Your Grace. And so am I. Our fates might rise together—or you might find your bloodline ended, and your titles passed off to another. Who would Gerald Conradine favor, I wonder? Perhaps Guy de la Marque? The most disloyal of your servants, don’t you think? Quite pleased by your son’s death.”

Isra
might have raged at him in her grief. But, as her hands clenched, she only inclined her head; the acknowledgement of one player to another. It chilled me to the bone.

“I will think on it,” she said crisply. She hardly turned her head as the door opened and Miriel walked out, her hand on Arman’s arm.
He was pleased, unable to hide his smile, and though Miriel was very pale, she kept her head up and a half-smile on her lips, and she curtsied to Isra without a flicker of hesitation.

“I will be pleased to join such a great family, Your Grace,” she said sweetly.
If she hoped to gain Isra’s favor by using her honorary title, she got nothing.

“Whether you will or not remains to be seen,” Isra said icily. To the Duke, she said simply, “Send the contract.” She looked at her brother with distaste as he kissed Miriel’s hand, and then she took his arm and left the room without a backwards glance.

“She’ll never allow the marriage,” Miriel said flatly to her uncle, and he smiled.

“I think you will find,” he said softly, “that no one wants power quite so much as those who have just lost it.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Like you, perhaps? You, who might have been Queen? Do you yet hope to supplant Marie in the King’s heart? I don’t think you can do it, you know. He does seem infatuated.”
He smiled, reveling in the open challenge, pleased to taunt Miriel with what she had once wanted most—like a predator, he remembered her moment of weakness in the aftermath of Garad’s death. He got nothing for his malice, however.

“Thank you for your kind advice,” Miriel said sweetly, in a fair imitation of Isra’s tone. “I will see you on the morrow. Good evening, my Lord Uncle.” And she swept from the room, her uncle gazing after her: the girl he utterly despised and mistrusted. The girl on whose slim shoulders, for reasons I had never understood, rested all of the Duke’s dynastic hopes.

Chapter 13

“Miriel?” I asked, into the darkness. While we had undressed, we had spoken of inconsequential things: low-voiced murmurs that we were safe at last, Miriel admitting her shock at such a quick marriage, me remarking how nice it was to have my own boots once more, and being glad to have seen Roine. When the silence in the next room had become complete, I had known that Temar and the Duke, as well, had retired to bed; I had looked over to see Miriel staring at the ceiling, still
wide awake.

“Yes?” She turned her head to look at me.

“What did he say? Arman, I mean.” I had wanted to know all night what that man could have said, what Miriel could have responded.

“He wanted to know if I truly wished to marry him,” Miriel said simply.

“Why would he ask that?” Arman was of near equal power to the Duke himself; he could order near any woman in the kingdom to his side. I did not think he would care overmuch if Miriel wanted to be his wife, as long as she was obedient. But I saw her smile, and I remembered the man’s courtly demeanor and troubled eyes.

“Think about it,” she said. I waited a moment, then shook my head.

“You know I’m no good at these things.”

“He wants me,” Miriel explained. “Do you see
now?” I nodded. I did see. I understood, too, how Miriel had remained calm as we undressed, the panic sinking away. Much was forgiven an adored wife, and if Miriel and I could not escape at once, she was at least at the mercy of a man who sought her love, and not that of a man like her uncle.

“No wonder Isra hates you,” I said, and Miriel nodded.

“First Garad, now…” she trailed off. Her weary amusement had fled, and I could see her sliding towards melancholy, remembering the past. I had only stood by, watching as Miriel seduced Garad, but she had been the one to smile at him and laugh with him. If I was consumed with guilt when I thought of him, I wondered how much worse it must be for her. I was struck by the urge to tell her that she could not have saved his life by failing to capture his interest, or by loving him more truly, but I did not want to draw her further along that line of thought. Instead, I propped myself up on my elbow.

“You should know what the Duke is planning, though.”
This was what I had been waiting to say all night. I had barely been able to keep from blurting the words out, so badly did I want to share the knowledge with someone. The casual discussion of a coup, of troops, of assassinations, had chilled me to the bone. I had always thought the Duke a hard man, but he had never displayed such contempt for life before. He prided himself on being economical, wasting nothing, winning by cunning and not by might—what did this new turn to force mean? I shook my head, to clear it. “He and Isra have a plan.”

“The throne. He’s always planning to take the throne,” Miriel said dreamily. She had been so exhausted by the change of
her fortunes—from riding through the wilderness with soldiers, trying to outrace an army, to a banquet, to marriage, in one day—that she was drifting to sleep even in her melancholy. I grimaced that even half-awake, Miriel should have guessed this, that had been such a shock to me.

“How do you always know these things first?” I asked, disgruntled. She looked over at me, trying to keep her eyes open.

“The problem with you is you don’t want anything for yourself,” she said simply. “If you could, you’d be able to see it better. I mean…” She shook her head and yawned. “You see it, but you don’t understand it.” I lay back, thinking, and when I did not respond, she struggled awake, leaning over the edge of her bed, her hair falling in a tumble of curls around her shoulders.

“What were they planning, then?”

“Oh.” I shook my head. “You were right. The Duke told Isra that he could have the other DeVeres assassinated, so you could be heir. Then your child by Arman would be heir to all the west, up to the Cessor lands. They were talking about troops; I think he means to rally for the throne.”

  “Yes,” Miriel decided, after a moment. “He can’t get me onto the throne as things stand now, so he has to make another alliance.”
I was horrified, but she was calm. The Duke was a puzzle to her; if she could only understand him, she could face him without fear. “It makes more sense now—him telling me to trust him. Arman, I mean. He said I must trust him, and he would raise me up. That was what he meant.”

“So what should we do?” I asked
. It was always the point: the central point. Whatever Arman’s reasons for this treason, he was nothing more than another courtier to outwit. Miriel would know how best to do that.

“Play along,” Miriel said. She yawned
again and lay back down; she was not worried. “We’ll have the treaty signed in a week.”

“You could be married by then,” I said flatly. I regretted it at once, for she scrambled
back up to stare at me, wide-eyed.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“ I had not meant to scare her, only to show her the flaw in her reasoning. I had forgotten that she was the one who would be sacrificed if the plan went awry.

“I can’t actually
marry
him,” Miriel hissed, and I felt oddly reassured. The ease with which she had slipped into her mask, the glib assurances that she knew what she was doing, that she knew how to play this man and his conniving family—it had scared me. It had reminded me of what she had once been. And I had been scared, too, of how easy I had found it to watch, and listen, and catch secrets once more. Miriel’s panic was unfeigned, and it gave me hope that she would not turn back into the creature of ice she had been before.

I pushed myself up to sit and rubbed at my temples, trying to think.

“You don’t have to,” I assured her. At her look, I threw up my hands. “Stall him! Can’t you come up with something?” She glared for a moment, and then sank into repose.

“I suppose,” she said. She wound her fingers together, lacing and unlacing them as she thought.

“How did you even convince him that you wanted to marry him in the first place?” I asked, skeptically, and she shot me a look. She took a breath, paused, and then her whole demeanor changed. She became frightened, vulnerable; her eyes were very wide.

“My Lord, surely you have seen that I have always admired you,” she said softly. I blinked, and she looked away. “How could I not? I ask only—“ She broke off, and squeezed her eyes shut, the very picture of sorrow and beauty. “To have my life shattered so suddenly, with such tragedy. I cannot even fathom it.” She opened her eyes, and became Miriel once more. “That’s how,” she said. “And see, it worked.” Distaste was thick in her tone.

“And that’s how you’ll stall him,” I said, thinking of strategy so that I would not have to think of Arman Dulgurokov, his good sense overwhelmed by blue eyes and pretty words. Traitor that he was, I could almost feel sorry for him. “It’s all so sudden—you wish to marry him in the style that his wedding deserves—you still grieve for Garad. You could work Isra around that way, I suppose.”

“She’ll never like me.” Miriel shook her head. She saw the anger on my face and, surprisingly, laughe
d. “Don’t be angry for me. Hasn’t it occurred to you—she’s the only one who’s right about me?”

“What?”
I frowned up at her, and she smiled her infectious smile.

“Of all the Court,” Miriel explained, “Some people envied me, some people hated me. But Isra’s the only one who had the sense to think that everything about me was a lie. She never trusted me.”

“She was jealous that you would be Queen, and she would be pushed off the throne,” I said, and Miriel shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter why she was right. I think she knew, though.” She smiled. “You know, it almost makes me think better of her. Don’t look so grim—it’s just a few days.”

“And then what?” I demanded, and her smile faded away. Her smiles and her laughter had frightened me. “I’m scared already—and you should be, too, not laughing. We’re only just back and we’re already part of plot against the throne. I don’t know if I can get us out again when we have the treaty, and where would we go now? And the war…”

I trailed off
, confused by my own fear. I had never felt as if I was a part of Heddred, not really. Heddred was a nation of warm farms and rich summers, people bound together by the Warlords and nurtured by House Warden, enjoying the prosperity of their mines, singing at village festivals. Heddred was the Palace and the Court, unimaginable riches and endless schemes. I had watched both with the uncomprehending gaze of a mountain girl. Voltur had been the last outpost before Ismir, prone always to war and prey to the cold weather and the harsh, unforgiving soil of the mountains. The people of Voltur did not live, they survived, cut off from their Kingdom by treacherous passes and fierce blizzards. even when I came to the plains and the Court, I had never felt a part of that world.

It was strange to me that I should
now share in Heddred’s fortunes, and know myself to be a part of this kingdom. Heddred stretched from the eastern seas, across the low plains, and into the mountains of Voltur; we were all of the same kingdom, and now we were under attack from the same foe. Miriel had always understood that, somehow; it was she who had angrily reprimanded the rebels for their lack of feeling, she who had called them to fight for Heddred. I trailed along in her wake, the tiny scale of my own existence wiped away by the glory and valor of hers, and now, at last, in the face of this fear, I understood.

Miriel could see none of this. She frowned at me in the low light.

“You truly are afraid, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “I didn’t think you got afraid.” I could have laughed, to know just how little of my fear she had ever seen, but it did not seem amusing just now.

“I’m afraid all the time,” I said shortly. “I’m a part of a world I don’t understand.”

“And you want to be free of it?” Miriel asked, probing for the truth. I thought on it.

“I don’t know,” I said, at last. “I wanted to be free of the Court, but that was because it was so dark. I wanted to do something good—and that brought us back here. I don’t know what I want
now.” Miriel did not respond at once. She lay down and stared up at the ceiling again, and I had laid back down myself and nearly drifted off to sleep when she said,

“How did it feel to see him? When I saw Wilhelm, it was like my stomach fell out.”
Now I smiled, sleepily; it was strange to hear Miriel speak of such undignified feelings. When she had pined for Wilhelm after Garad’s death, she had been a tragic heroine, beautiful and filled with sorrow.

Then I remembered what she had asked and my smile faded away. I could find no words for what I had felt when I had seen Temar. I had wanted to smile at him, and have him smile back. I had wanted, more than anything, for his grim expression to slip away, and to know that he was glad to see me alive and well. But he had not looked at me, even once; I closed my eyes against the pain.

“You were right,” I said, and the words surprised me.

“What?” Miriel pushed the covers back and
lifted her head to frown at me. She was as curious as a cat; even bone-deep exhaustion would not keep her from figuring out a puzzle.

“He is playing his own game,” I explained. “I don’t know what it is—but he has a plan of his own. Anyway, that’s what I thought when I saw him.” That, and a thousand other feelings I did not want to give voice to. If I could deny them, I thought hopelessly, then perhaps they would fade away like dreams in daylight.

“Are you afraid of him?” Miriel asked.

“Are you afraid of Wilhelm?” I countered. I could not—could not—answer her question, not even to myself.

“A little,” Miriel said. “He would never hurt me, I don’t think—not…with a knife, or poison. But I’m afraid, all the time, that he would say no for some reason. Not sign.”

“He’ll sign. You can persuade him to.” I could hardly believe what I had seen at dinner; after such awestruck love, Wilhelm could not be so indifferent to Miriel.
I had to believe that he still loved her, and that he was still true to the rebellion. I did not know how Miriel would bear it if he was not.

“I hope I can,” Miriel said. “Because if not…then I’ve lost him, and the man I hoped he was. And I don’t know what I could want, after that.”

“You can persuade him,” I assured her.

“And then what?” I saw tears glittering in her eyes. “
As you said: then what? When we’re of one mind and we’ve signed the treaty—and he’s still married to
her
, and I’m to marry an old man who wants to overthrow the throne? How can we face that?”

“Then we leave again,” I said quietly. “If you want. Or we stay, and you advise him on policy and the…what was it?”

“Parliament.”

“That.” There was a silence.

“Would you stay?” she asked, her voice very small. “If I stayed, would you stay, too—to help me? I have to know he’s safe—I can’t just leave, and know that my uncle is trying to overthrow him. Would you stay, if I did?”

“Always,” I said honestly, and she nodded; I heard her hair brush against the pillow.

“We can do this,” she whispered. “And then we’ll decide.”