The Firebird's Vengeance (25 page)

Ananda simply frowned. “How is this betrayal?”

For a moment Sakra was stunned. How could Ananda not understand at once? Surely it was obvious. “She does not know I am speaking with you, and she does not know I have spoken with Mistress Urshila. She does not want others making what she believes is a deeply personal decision.”

“But you know it is not,” Ananda pointed out. “Nothing that concerns the well-being of Isavalta can be.”

The room suddenly seemed too empty. There was too much room. There was nothing to hold the emotion in, no propriety, no witness to help keep feeling contained. For a moment Sakra thought he would overflow with what he was feeling, and he wondered what Ananda would do if he did. It would be as if the birds flew north for winter. He cared for her, he soothed her feelings and solved her problems, saved her life. He served her. She did not serve him.

In the end he could only find words for part of the truth. “I do not want Bridget hurt.”

Ananda was trying to understand, he could tell that much from her eyes. She was trying hard to fathom all that he had not said. She did understand he was distressed. “What would you have me do?”

Release me from my bond. Leave me free to be with Bridget. Do not need me anymore
. “If you could, Majesty, I would have you take her story at its face when she comes, and let us go.”

“Why, Sakra?” she said, but in his mind, he heard her answer the words he had not spoken.
How could you ask such a thing, even in your heart?

“Because Mistress Urshila is right, and so is Bridget. We must not forget that the Vixen is involved in this, and thwarting her can only make what will be bad worse.”
Because I am infected by Isavalta’s wilderness. Because I am in love
.

“You believe the Vixen is using Bridget?”
Then you are as false as the
lokai’s
queen
.

“I do.”
No, Ananda. I swear. I did not look for this. I never wished for release from my bond
.

“Does she realize this?”
Can you even know what such love is? How can you be certain these feelings are true?

“She does not wish to.”
I can’t. I can only know they burn as if they were true
.

“And you will let it happen?”
So you would have your oaths broken and abandon me for what might be nothing more than lust after a woman’s body and power?

No. It was not that. He loved Bridget. He loved her smile and the light in her eyes. He loved her wit and her bravery. He loved the way he felt beside her, talking with her, sharing a joke or a fleeting touch. These things were real.

“She is in danger. She denies it. She sees only her child, and that is the Vixen’s intent, and for the sake of duty and empire, and …”
Heart
. He could not speak the word. Not to Ananda. Not yet. He could barely speak it to himself. “I can only walk beside her into danger.”

Walk beside her, to her other world, into the Vixen’s trap, because he could not abandon Bridget any more than he could abandon Ananda.

“I will need you here, whatever comes.” That was nothing less than the truth too. Lord Daren, the other court sorcerers, they still saw Ananda as a “southerner,” as duplicitous as they feared all such were. It was out in the open now, how she had successfully pretended to possess the invisible gifts for the years of Mikkel’s enchantment. They looked at such a successful liar and their minds, honed by years of plotting in the court and out of it, walked the paths of suspicion. She needed someone she could trust who understood the world of magics. She needed the one who had been beside her in all other troubles. She would not be safe, or sure, if the Vixen took Sakra away.

Or if Bridget took Sakra away.

He couldn’t breathe. His lungs seemed to have shrunken, leaving no breath for speech. “I wish to be here,” he managed to whisper.
That is true, that is true, I swear it is
. “But I am afraid for what will happen if I do not walk with Bridget.”

“What will happen if you do?”

Sakra shook his head, his gaze wandering back to the window and the melting gardens. “I don’t know.”

“You are not afraid of what will happen when you are gone?” Ananda tried to speak in a light tone, a gentle tease, but the attempt fell flat and her voice only sounded tremulous.

“You mistake me, Majesty, I am terrified of what will happen.”

Ananda was twisting her hands together in her lap. She pulled them apart ruthlessly, laying them on the chair arms. A thousand images ran through Sakra’s mind. Ananda looking up from a book in the queen’s library and grinning at Sakra, because she’d just read her first sentence. The thin, sprightly girl pouring her heart out to Sakra because she was twelve and getting love letters from someone who would not even sign his name, and she was sure she loved this anonymous someone more than anyone in the world. The touch of Ananda’s hand, right before she had to walk down the gangplank and set foot on Isavalta’s soil for the first time. All the hurried meetings, the desperate consultations, the hundred deceptions that her life in Isavalta became, and all the time spent, a whole life spent, if not beside her, out there, working for her, protecting her.

“You love her,” Ananda said.

“Yes.”

Sakra met Ananda’s eyes, and saw the deep distress there. For one wild moment he wondered if she was jealous. Had she ever looked on Sakra with that kind of love? No. He was her older brother, her guard and guide. Mikkel was her lover, and Sakra had moved Heaven and Earth to bring Mikkel back to her, and they had both believed her gratitude to be boundless and the need for deceptions over.

But here they were again, in a secret conference, voices hushed, heads bowed, afraid someone might hear what was said between them.

It was her turn to look away. She looked at the letter she had been just beginning. She had written
To My Beloved Father
.

What would come next?

He thought Ananda was probably wondering the same thing. “I never thought of you loving anyone but … I never thought of it.”

“Neither did I.” The words were rueful, but he was surprised to find there was wonder underneath them.

“We knew things must change.” Platitudes. At such a time they had more between them than platitudes.

“Yes.” Sakra touched her hand, and Ananda stared at him, even though it was a gesture he had made a thousand times before. “But we did not know they would be like this.”

She needed him. The set of her face, the dimness of her eyes, her whole being told him as much. She had thought once Mikkel was free, the worst would be over. But there had been no time to adjust, no real time to plan. No time to review and rearrange. The court was still largely the place Medeoan had made it, scheming, selfish, and petty. The lords master all gave their oaths eagerly, but did they all mean to keep them diligently? There was no way to tell, and so few that she could trust.

And Mikkel still shuddered in his nightmares, still struggled with his duties. He needed her and she needed Sakra.

“You’ve told me the Vixen plays long and complex games,” said Ananda, grasping at faint hopes. “Can we wait to make this move?”

“I don’t believe we can.” He made a decision. If he framed his words carefully, perhaps he could spare them both some pain. “I will be no more than a day or two, depending on how fast we can make the crossing. I don’t believe the child can truly be alive. We will go swiftly and come back, and then you will have both Bridget and I to aid in whatever may come.”

Outrage burned in Ananda’s eyes and Sakra knew he had made a disastrous mistake.

“You don’t believe that,” she said. “You don’t.”

Sakra closed his eyes, pained. He lied to her. He had tried to
lie
to her.

“I hope,” he said, trying to undo what had just happened. “I hope only. I believe …”

Grieved and furious, Ananda blurted out, “Must I order you to stay?”

“You may order me to stay.” There was nothing but resignation in the words. He knew what he had done, and he accepted the consequences. “I am your servant.”

The last word stung. They had never used that word between them. But then, they had never lied to each other either.

Ananda stood. She turned away and faced her writing desk. She stared down at the creamy paper and the drying ink.

“ ‘To My Beloved Father,’ ” she read. “I’ve been trying to decide what to write next. Perhaps ‘To My Beloved Father, the son of Samudra, who came to glory wresting the last of our lands from the
Huni
, whose brother let the sorcerer Yamuna talk him into trying to steal the empire of Isavalta and so condemned me to life as a peace offering.’ ”

Sakra had stood beside her as her father had spoken to her on the deck of the ship sailing for Isavalta.
Remember, Daughter
, he’d said,
when you are empress, in the end it is the realm in your care that matters. All other considerations must be set aside
. All
other considerations
.

All other considerations. Bridget, forlorn, might become a danger. The Vixen might be playing a game. The Firebird might be coming to burn the world down. Sakra might leave her forever. Which was worst?

“Or perhaps, ‘To My Beloved Father, today I sealed the fate of Isavalta.’ ” She crumpled the paper up fiercely.

“I cannot let you go, Sakra,” she said without looking up. “Not yet. We are both thinking of my father’s words, I know we are. I must be empress. You know this. I must look to Isavalta first and Isavalta needs you and Bridget.” A spark of hope shimmered inside her, enabling her to turn. “Perhaps this day will bring other answers.”

Sakra gave her the salute of trust, and kept his silence. She touched his head, as mistress to servant, giving him leave to stand, and to depart.

Once in the corridor, Sakra got himself as quickly out of sight of the pages and guards as he could. He hid himself in a small coffee room that was empty of any other people. He could not let anyone see him bow his head into his hand. He could not let anyone see him clench his fist as he tried to bring himself back under control. He could not let any see the single tear of sorrow and anger trickle from the corner of his eye.

Ananda must be empress, and I must serve. Oh, Mothers All, Bridget, I’m sorry
.

It was dark when the Firebird returned to Isavalta.

It shot overhead, faint and silent, little more than a piece of stardust in the spring night. In its wake, all other lights flickered, and died, their fuel going so instantly cold that not even the smoke remained.

In the palace of Vyshtavos, the coals in the great ovens immediately fell dark, the coals under their nightly blankets of ash in the hearths and firepits became silent and still. The bed warmers, the braziers, the lamps burning late and early in the apartments of the sorcerers and scholars, all winked out. The candles and braziers tended all night by a special pair of footmen in the imperial apartments were snuffed out as quickly as if they had been doused in water.

Mikkel Medeoanasyn Edemskoivin, the emperor of Isavalta, started awake with a wordless shout. Over the thunder of his heartbeat, he heard the sound of the servants scrambling, but the room remained dark. The mattress and blankets shifted. Hands touched him, and for a moment he stiffened, until he recognized the hand as Ananda’s.

“What’s happened?” he whispered before he remembered who and where he was. “What’s happened!” he shouted so the servants could hear.

“Forgiveness, Majesty,” called Barta, Mikkel’s chief waiting gentleman. “There will be light in a moment.”

Out of the dark came shuffling, mumbles, clanks, and the crack of some heavy thing against the stone floor, but the promised light did not come. There only came more noises of men moving back and forth, blind and trying not to stumble.

Ananda’s fine hand slipped under his and Mikkel closed his fingers around hers gratefully. What was kept a secret in this chamber was that the emperor of Isavalta, Vyshko’s heir, was afraid of the dark.

The binding his mother had laid on his mind had dimmed his sight. For a time he could not then measure, but now knew was three solid years, he had wandered in a world that faded from twilight to darkness, his mind thick and murky. There was no time, no light, no joy, only an endless dreariness, a haunting need that he could no longer understand, and a name. Ananda. His wife who shivered beside him now.

Rallying himself, Mikkel groped for the edge of the coverlet with his free hand and pulled it up around their shoulders. The clamor of the servants failed to fill up the silence and Mikkel’s ears began to ring.

Did Ananda feel his skin begin to prickle?

“What can be taking so long?” she muttered with simple, everyday annoyance. Nothing portentous, nothing special. An unremarkable grumble. He wished he could see her. Her scent was sharp, her touch warm, familiar, and welcome, but the darkness was thick, and he imagined he felt it trying to seep into his skin like water and reach through to his soul.

He shivered and tried to slow his breathing.

Ananda urged him to be patient with himself. Bound for three years as he was, it was not something he could shake off in a matter of days. Sometimes, though, he thought he saw disappointment in her eyes as she said it. There was no time for such patience. He was emperor now. His mother was dead a world away and there was no one but him to take the praise or the blame for what happened to the realm of Vyshko and Vyshemir.

“Open a window,” Barta ordered.

“What?” Unable to sit still any longer, Mikkel scrambled from the bed, pushing his way through unseen velvet curtains that fell heavy and smooth past his shoulders. The sound of Ananda followed behind him.

He moved as quickly as he dared in order to remind himself that he
could
move quickly, that this darkness was an external thing. His outstretched hands found the edge of the carved bed screens and he was able to pass them without knocking them over. Beyond the screens, Huras had drawn back the tapestry curtains on the two arched windows that overlooked the courtyard. The faint silver light of the quarter moon provided just enough illumination for Mikkel to see the shapes of his serving men. One crouched beside the firepit with a long poker, stirring frantically at the ashes and coughing as they swirled up around him. Another bent over a table, struggling with a tinderbox. The tiny “ching-ching” of flint and steel sounded between his breathy curses. Another stood before the window, fingering a candle’s wick, trying to tell if it was long enough, or if it had drowned in its wax.