The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (5 page)

“He spoke of it today. Derodotur, too.”

Her lips thinned at the confirmation. “I would have told you, but Mother told me never to speak of it. Not that she had to tell me that—Uorsin flew into rages even then, when the Tala were mentioned. So much so that not even Mother objected when he forbade discussion.”

“What is the mark?” Amelia asked.

Ursula shrugged, restless, unhappy. “Who knows?”

But I knew.

“Rayfe told me he could tell it about me. He wanted to know if I had some mark.” I got up, too, setting my wineglass down. I didn’t need my head any fuzzier. “Am I so different?”

Amelia glanced away unhappily and Ursula simply returned my gaze, as she would in swordplay, waiting for me to decide upon my next attack. I knew it, didn’t I? The way everyone had always done their best not to see me. Not to see the monster inside.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but even I could hear the fear in it. The trembling hurt of the betrayed. “How could you look at me and see”—I gestured helplessly at myself—“whatever it is you’ve been seeing, and not say anything?”

Ursula glanced away finally, fiddling with the hilt of her sword.

“Fine,” I breathed, slipping my hand into my pocket for the reassuring knife-edge of the black feather. “So. Uorsin made some kind of deal with Mother’s people. They let him marry Salena, help him win the war, and the first daughter with this Tala mark on her forehead gets married to one of theirs in return. Sounds pretty straightforward. Except Father reneged on his word. Not so straightforward.”

Ursula reflexively glanced toward the antechamber. “Really, darling, you might lower your voice when you speak treason against the King.”

“What?” I snapped. “Rayfe already doomed me by saying I’d be receptive to his offer. No wonder Uorsin thinks I’ve been consorting with the enemy.”

“Technically you have,” Amelia pointed out, “rolling around in the grass, kissing.”

“I did
not
kiss him.”

Ursula stilled. “And his blood did not pass your lips.”

Not much, anyway. I ducked the question and regretted the wine. It hadn’t helped the headache, only tightened it like an iron band around my temples. I pressed my fingertips into the bones around my eyes. “They all made a big deal about that. Those things must seal the pact somehow.”
Or make tiny birds.

“The old ways.” Ursula nodded.

“We don’t recognize the old ways,” Amelia argued. “You might not think much of Glorianna’s temple, but our laws don’t recognize a marriage outside of that. Not even Moranu or Danu can seal a marriage.”

Not anymore. But they did in the old ways.

“True.” Ursula tipped her head at our little sister. “If the Tala want the High Throne of the Twelve Kingdoms, then Rayfe would have to marry you legally.”

“Okay.” I let out a long breath. “So, it’s not enough to whisk me off. The King has to agree to the terms.”

“The King has already agreed to the terms—before any of us were born. Now he has to get out of them.”

“Continue to get out of them.” Amelia blushed when we looked at her. “I mean, none of us knew about this, right? So they’re all in collusion, like Ursula said. Rewriting history, avoiding a political alliance.”

“What’s important,” Ursula said to her in a stern voice, “is protecting Andi. That’s all Uorsin ever wanted to do. Protect us, protect his kingdom, protect the peace.”

“What if there had been sons,” I wondered, “did they get nothing in that case?”

Ursula considered that. “Mother didn’t say. Surely any agreement would have covered that eventuality.”

“What if”—and this possibility bothered me greatly—“what if the Tala don’t want the throne?” Rayfe had wanted to take me somewhere beyond the Wild Lands. Away from my sisters and the only home I’d ever known. My heart clenched with dread. “What if there’s some other plan?”

“What do you keep fiddling with in your pocket?”

Guilty, I yanked my hand out of my skirt. “Nothing.”

“It’s that feather,” Amelia tattled. “I saw you pick it up. Is that really wise?”

Flinty anger sparked in Ursula’s gaze. “What in Danu are you thinking, Andi? Burn the damn thing!”

“No!” I couldn’t bear the thought, though I couldn’t understand why. It tangled up with the terror that I’d be taken away. Cast adrift with no one and nothing. “I’ll get rid of it, but I refuse to burn it.”

Ursula held out an implacable hand. “Give it to me, Andi.”

I shook my head.

Her face went to stone. “That’s an order, in case you missed the concept.”

“It’s mine. It doesn’t matter to anything else. I just want to study it.”

“You understand nothing of the Tala,” Ursula hissed.

“Like you do?”

“That bird was a creature of darkness—you saw how it behaved. A feather from it is a totem that ties you to them. Is that what you want, Andi? Because if you wish to be a traitor to your people, your kingdom, and your King, then you’d better tell me right now.”

“My people?” I gasped it out, my heart thudding at her words. “We’re all half
her
! I might bear this mark from our mother, or whatever it is, but these Tala are your people, too—did you somehow gloss over that part? Maybe I have it the strongest, but both of you have at least some of her blood.” Always back to the blood.

“Andi.” Amelia scrambled off the bed to stand between me and Ursula. “We understand how difficult this is, but—”

“Give me that cursed feather, Andromeda,” Ursula demanded, “or I will take it from you by force.”

“No.”

“You stubborn git! Give it now.”

“Andi, just give it to her—it’s only a little thing.”

But it wasn’t a little thing. I didn’t know why, but I hated to give it up. The certainty filled me and overflowed, digging me into the earth. “I won’t let you have it.”

Her jaw strained, teeth tightly clenched, hand fisted on her sword hilt. Ursula leaned in, hawk nose flanked by flaring gray eyes. She topped me by a head, easily. For a wild moment, I thought she’d draw her sword, and I wished for my knife. The one I’d left in Rayfe’s shoulder.

We each had a piece of the other, then.

“This is about me,” I said. I felt cool now, reasonable, explaining this to her. “My curse, my fate. Whatever happens, it affects me most of all. I decide how to handle things. And I feel keeping this feather is important.”

Scorn filled Ursula’s face. “You fool,” she hissed. “This is not about you. You’re a blood pawn. A baby maker to be traded between political alliances. The Tala don’t want
you
—they want to fill you with little shape-shifters and wizards to populate our throne and overrun our kingdoms. And you’d hand it all over to them on a whim? Because you have a
feeling
?” Contempt dripped from every word.

A small sound escaped Amelia, and I saw tears running down her face.

“You asked me what I see in you, my little sister?” Ursula continued, relentless. “I see someone who is never truly a part of this royal family. I see you riding off to be by yourself, not listening to important policy matters. You care more for your horse than for any of us. Now I’m wondering if I see a traitor.”

“It’s a feather, Ursula, not the keys to the kingdom.”

“Prove it.”

“I shouldn’t have to prove myself to you.”

“No, you shouldn’t, should you? Anyone else would have never picked up a stinking relic like that—why did you?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Oh, I think you do know. I think somewhere deep in your mind, there is a reason. Is it him?”

“What?”

“Oh, you watched Ami fall in love, you gaze at Hugh with such admiration, and now you think to have a prince of your own. But contrary you, it has to be someone different, doesn’t it?”

“You’re wrong,” I told her, but my voice wasn’t steady. Rayfe’s midnight-blue eyes filled my mind. My body pulsed, remembering his weight on me. How I’d wondered where his chair might fit in the throne room.
Traitor
. It’s an ugly word.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ursula said, soft, deadly.

“Give her the cursed feather already, Andi—please!” Amelia sobbed out the words.

I slid my finger along the glassy edge of the feather. Just a thing. It didn’t mean anything one way or the other. I pulled it out and the firelight caught it, gleaming indigo-black. Amelia made a little sound. I laid it across Ursula’s calloused palm. Out in the night, a wolf howled and I shivered.

Ursula didn’t hesitate. Of course, she never does. She strode to the fireplace and tossed the feather in. For a moment it gleamed there, perfectly black and glossy. Then it burst into flame, a flash, a tendril of blue smoke rising and fading away. And it was gone.

Ursula folded her arms, watching the fire burn with her back to me, a long, lean silhouette against the bright fire.

“Don’t give me cause to doubt you again, Andi.”

“It seems to me that doubt is something that rises in your own heart and mind, Ursula, regardless of my actions.”

She turned, a line between her brows, and surveyed me as if she’d never seen me before. “Our actions define us. They speak who we are more clearly than any number of words.”

“I gave you the feather to destroy, didn’t I?”

“What else happened in that meadow, I wonder?”

“I told you everything already.” Mostly.

“But not how you felt. You haven’t said how you felt about it all.”

“She was hurt and afraid—it’s hard to put that into words,” Amelia defended me.

“Are you feeding her the correct lines, Amelia?”

“I don’t need lines, Ursula.” My arms were folded, too, a mirror of my sister. I unwound them, holding them deliberately still by my sides. “If you judge me by my actions, then note I left my dagger buried in that man’s shoulder. I defended myself and succeeded. And you know full well that wasn’t easy for me. Don’t stand there and accuse me of dreaming after love from my attacker.” Though, hadn’t I? Imagining him as my husband. That longing churned with the fear in my stomach.

“You two are my entire world. Don’t push me away—I can’t bear it.” The emotions pushed up into my throat, making my eyes sting. “What do I have if I don’t have you?”

Amelia slipped her arms around my waist, leaning her shining head against my breast, as soft and sweet as when she was a child. “Don’t cry, Andi. We love you. We would never let those awful people take you.”

“Thank you, Ami.” I wrapped my arms around her but kept my gaze on Ursula.

Ursula nodded slowly. “So be it, then. We’ll keep you safe, Andi, whatever it takes. We won’t give you over to them, to him. I give you my solemn word on that.”

I should have felt reassured by that. And yet, with the sudden gulf yawning between us, it still somehow sounded like a threat.

A chill of loneliness frosted my heart. It knew what I didn’t yet understand.

A
fter they left me, I dreamed of Rayfe.

Hard to imagine I wouldn’t, given the way his advent into our lives had turned everything upside down. I did my best to clear my mind before I slept, mouthing the words along with Gaignor while she led the ladies in a prayer to Glorianna for Her divine protection against the dark forces, to uphold and protect the Twelve Kingdoms and me.

Sometimes I wasn’t sure which they referred to.

But even as Gaignor repeated the ritual praises of Glorianna, invoking Her inviolate strength, I kept seeing the shards of Her window raining down, like so many sharp drops of watery blood.

I fell asleep mesmerized by the declining flames in the fireplace, fending off the chill night air. Their falling dance lulled me into rest, the interplay of light and shadow a silent music. Even the noise of the sentries ceaselessly pacing the ramparts had quieted. Blessed, sweet sleep welcomed me and drew me down.

The brush of black wings on the stone sill yanked me awake.

My window didn’t have even Glorianna’s feeble glass to keep it out. I sat up, heart pounding, almost afraid to look. The raptor sat there, cocking its head so one bright eye fixed on me. The deep shadows in the corners shifted. Moved and seethed. The restless bodies of the wolfhounds churned in a dark swirl, tossing up the gleam of fangs, a flash of fulminous blue. The satin quilt shifted under my fingers like sand, whispering of blood and death. Someone laughed. Soft. Regular.

I was a child again, alone in this big bed, crying for my dead mother. No—that was Amelia wailing. Thin shrieks echoing through the castle. Coming closer. Her nurse carried her into the room and set the baby in my arms.

I tried to tell her no.
No, keep the baby away from the dogs.
But I couldn’t speak.

“You have to quiet her,” the nurse said. “Stop your weeping and care for your sister.”

Amelia’s enormous twilight eyes blinked at me. “I’m hungry,” the baby said. “Feed me.”

My breasts were a flat child’s. I had no milk.

She screamed at me. “Feed me!”

I tried to shush her, but the dogs had heard the cries. They surged up, with barks and growls, fangs tearing at the infant blanket. I held the baby tight against me. White teeth sank into my arm, shredding my flesh.

“Rayfe!” I cried, finding my voice. “Help, oh, please!”

Why I called out to my enemy to save me, I didn’t understand. But, in the way of dreams, it was my only path.

A whispered word and they were gone.

The infant, who both was and wasn’t Amelia, the wolfhounds, the giant black bird, all gone. Only Rayfe remained.

He stood by my bed. His black hair spilled loose over his shoulders, his midnight gaze on me, his face grave.

“Beautiful Andromeda—don’t be afraid. I’m here.”

He sat beside me and stroked a finger down my cheek. It felt real and warm and I wanted to lean my cheek into his palm, for comfort.

“You’re not real,” I whispered, willing myself to wake up.

“I am real. The other things are not. They’re just . . . fragments tossed up by your mind because of the changes in you. I would spare you this pain, but I cannot. Let me soothe you.”

He ran a hand over my hair and his scent wrapped around me, warm, enticing.

“I apologize, Princess, for this morning. I bungled things. I thought once our blood mingled, you would understand. Come to me and I’ll make it all up to you. You need to. It’s your destiny. Neither of us can change that.”

“I cannot. I never will.” I clung to the covers, as if I could keep from being dragged away. “This is my home, my people.”

His fingers twined in my hair, possessive, impatient. Tugging me close. For a moment I thought he’d kiss me, and my heart pounded in fear and elation. “Your true people await you. Your home is Annfwn and it needs you. Won’t you see? You only wound us all by resisting.”

He turned, showing me the dagger that stood out from his muscled shoulder, blood soaking his sleeve dark.

“You injured me, Andromeda. Won’t you take it back?”

He took my hand, unfolded my fist, stroking my open palm, and wrapped my fingers around the hilt of the knife. It filled my hand, hard and hot with his blood. I cringed. It had seemed so right at the time.

“I was defending myself.”

“I know. It was my fault for frightening you. But now I need you to pull it out.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.”

“Have someone else do it.”

“Don’t you understand yet, my Andromeda? It has to be you. No one else can. I need you. Annfwn needs you.

“Please.” He whispered the words, insidious. “Please, Andromeda, do this for me.”

I tried. I tugged, but the dagger wouldn’t come free. It was stuck, deep in the bone. Rayfe threw his head back, howling out a scream of agony, and I snatched my hand away.

He was gone. I sat alone in bed, the fire cold, dawn barely lighting the sky from black to dark blue. The dim light, though, was enough to see the blood covering my hand. Feeling sick and sorry, I dashed to the washbasin, stumbling a little in my haste, and scrubbed my hands in the chilly water until they gleamed white and stainless.

If only I could do the same for my heart.

By the time I awoke again, this time to midmorning overcast and drizzling rain, impossibly sore and feeling a hundred years old, Ursula had already left on her scouting mission, leading her special squad of soldiers—Ursula’s Hawks—to the meadow of acid-green grasses. Despite the previous day’s threat, she not only didn’t force me to go along; I was forbidden to leave the castle. Rumors of war whispered around every corner. For a while I lurked in my chambers. I ate what breakfast I could choke down and sent all my ladies away because they seemed unable to talk of anything else. But the constant clatter of soldiers drilling in the yard, sentries changing guard every hour . . . it wore on me.

Enthusiasm sang in the very air. Mohraya had been birthed out of the blood of the Great War. Uorsin was a warrior, first and foremost, and a general hard on the heels of that. Twenty-five years had passed since the final victory. The warriors of Ordnung thirsted for more.

It ran through their voices, the desire to fight, to triumph. My sentries in the antechamber told one another stories about their fathers and grandfathers. About this siege and how that city fell. They reminded me of women telling one another childbirth tales, each story more agonizing, painful, and horrifying than the last.

I itched to be outside. To ride Fiona beyond all the voices and the sideways glances. To be free again, if only for a while.

By late afternoon, Ursula had returned and the High King summoned us for formal court. Not a good sign.

I let Amelia dress me to her satisfaction. She always seemed to think our father would be happier with me if I looked prettier. More like, well, Amelia. Now I knew, however, that I looked like Salena—and like the monstrous people our mother came from.

We all convened, sitting in our array of thrones and looking out over the assembled nobles, representatives of the other eleven kingdoms arrayed in the front. None of the kings would have had time to travel to Ordnung. Of course, Uorsin alone represented Mohraya. The lovely room sang with tension, the boarded-over window where Glorianna’s rose had shattered like a blackened eye.

“People of the Twelve Kingdoms.” Uorsin intoned the words, at his kingly best. He wore his formal robes and the crown. Not at all a good sign. He rarely did, complaining to Ursula that it itched. It was an ugly thing, crafted of unpolished iron, with twelve points, one for each kingdom. “Many of you know that we face a trial greater than any since the Great War. To spare the gentle hearts among us, we have not spoken the name of our ancient enemy in all these years, but now we must. The Tala—demons, every one—have escaped into the Wild Lands.”

He let the aghast murmurs run through the crowd. They all acted shocked and surprised, as if every one of them hadn’t heard what happened the day before.

“We face a grave peril indeed. They seek to undermine our peaceful and united kingdom with their black magic and evil ways. Worse, they think to destroy us by taking our beloved Princess Andromeda and bending her to their devilish purposes. We shall not let them!”

He pounded his fist on the arm of his throne, and a weak cheer went up at the signal, gaining strength from there. Until then, they hadn’t been sure how to respond. It would have been comical—I almost expected someone to say
Who?
—except my head was pounding. Amelia took my hand. Hers was cold as ice.

“We have no recourse but to defend our precious homeland. They shall not have our princess. We will destroy them and send them running back to their stinking burrows like the animals they are.

“People of the Twelve Kingdoms, we are at war!”

They cheered in earnest at that, the soldiers and guards sending up a roar that reverberated against the walls, making my ears ring.

After that, the true nattering began, the various representatives arguing over whether they should provide additional troops. Avonlidgh and Branli, in particular, preferred to keep their forces at home, to defend their own borders with the Wild Lands. Hugh stepped in to negotiate for Avonlidgh, Amelia trying not to look bored at his side, while Ursula seemed fired with a new light, arguing with the envoy from Branli.

I didn’t understand any of it. Why would Father go to war for me? While I appreciated the sentiment and greatly preferred not to be thrown to the wolfhounds, it seemed unlike Uorsin to fight for me, his least-favored daughter. Something more was going on, and I needed information.

As usual, everyone had now forgotten my presence, except in principle, so I took advantage of the moment. I fled to the library.

At least the only people there were the ones who weren’t so fired up to get out and defend my honor. Books were never high on Uorsin’s list of priorities, unless you counted law books, which were kept in his study chambers for easy reference. The majority of Mohraya’s archives were relegated to a series of dank cellar rooms, part of the previous castle’s foundation, most of which had served as dungeons or cells for prisoners before the Great War. After Uorsin took power, he had prisons built throughout the Twelve Kingdoms, part of the Plan for Peace. The librarians complained regularly of having to keep the wood fires going constantly to keep the mildew away. Uorsin finally told his field engineers to make them pipes to carry the smoke away, but he wouldn’t give up good aboveground space to books.

On days like today, the fires snapped with welcome warmth. I didn’t miss windows since all they showed was preparation for war. One I seemed to have caused.

“Can I help you, Princess Andi?”

All that had happened must have left me rattled, because I jumped inside my skin. Lady Mailloux blinked at me, her cinnamon-brown eyes concerned. “I did not mean to startle you, Princess.”

“No, Lady, I am . . . a little on edge.” I surprised myself, confiding that so readily.

She smiled, a soft curve of understanding. “If half the gossip is true, I’m not surprised.”

“I feel quite certain that far less than half is true.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “That does not surprise me either. So how may I assist you? You don’t often seek your answers in my books.”

Oddly phrased. “Where do you think I usually seek my answers?”

“If you don’t know, how would I?”

Somehow I suspected that was a dodge. Up until now I hadn’t thought I had any questions. “I’m looking for books, histories on the wars, especially the Tala. And the Wild Lands.” And my mother, though I couldn’t yet articulate that.

She twitched, smoothed it out. “So that bit of gossip carries merit, anyway. I’m sorry, Your Highness, that subject was interdicted many years ago. The official records were all destroyed.”

She shifted under my gaze, demurely dropping her eyes so she looked off to the side, a sweep of red hair dropping over a white cheek.

“And the unofficial records?”

“I wish I could help you, Princess, but I cannot offer what I do not have.”

“But you can show me the place where I might accidentally unearth something. Something overlooked, perhaps?”

“I’m sure I—”

“Look, Librarian Mailloux, I may not have spent much time down here, but I hear the petitions in court. Every one of these is precious to you.” I waved my hands at the towers of shelves, neatly stacked with books and scrolls. Beyond our circle of firelight, another room glowed, and a series after that. Endless cubbyholes of accumulated learning. “I’ve heard you say it before:
all knowledge is worth having
. I’m asking you to let me have it.”

She tapped restless fingers on her brown trousers. Her nails were broken and stained with ink and dust.

“What can I do in return?”

Her canny brown eyes sharpened, and I knew I had her.

“If there’s war, they’ll want their dungeons back again. For the prisoners,” she prompted at my blank response.

“But there are prisons now.”

“High King Uorsin will want to keep his prisoners of war close by, for questioning,” she countered.