SoJourner Page 11

  The corners of Freaer’s mouth tilted. “You remind me that you are my son.”

  Bitterness welled into the back of Rand’s throat. “Don’t call me that!” He spat the words. “I’m nothing like you.”

  His side vision alerted him. Urwan already pushed to his feet. Rand must strike or lose the chance. He leveled his dagger, but it shook in his hand.

  His father smirked. “You never were a warrior.”

  A wave of sickness thundered over Rand. If anyone deserved to die, his father did. Why couldn’t he kill him?

  Urwan thrust his ugly face into Rand’s, gagging him with the foulness of his breath. The garn’s claws dug into Rand’s knife hand and twisted. He screamed in pain, and the dagger clattered to the floor.

  Soft laughter reached him as he cradled his bloodied hand. “You are useless, like your mother.”

  The garn gripped Rand’s neck and squeezed.

  Blackness edged his vision, and he wondered with strange detachment if his neck would break before he suffocated. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to die with a monstrous face filling his vision.

  “Don’t kill him.” Freaer voice sounded bored. “Only remove him from my sight.”

  The pressure on Rand’s throat eased, and he gasped in air. His tormenter pressed his back, thrusting him off balance. Rand slammed into the wall, scraping against rough stone, and then Urwan was dragging him down the corridor.

  His father had spared his life, but Rand didn’t delude himself it had been out of kindness.

  14

  IMPRISONED

  Mara startled awake and fought to breathe. The feeling of suffocation eased almost at once, but something dark had happened. She knew it. For the rest of the night she wove in and out of restless dreams. Traelein woke her with a summons. She dragged from bed with aching eyes and submitted to her maid’s care.

  Her father met her at his door, concern plain on his face. “Are you feeling better this morning?”

  Her face heated, and she couldn’t quite look at him. “I am weary this morn but otherwise well, thank you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He stepped back, allowing her into his chamber. “The day has yet to warm. Will you take a chair by the fire?”

  Her feet sank into the woven mat before the hearth. “Thank you, but I’d rather stand.” Sometime during the long, wretched night she’d made a decision. She faced her father with her shoulders braced. “I have something to say.”

  “Oh?”

  His kind tone made what she had to say harder. Mara steadied herself. “I want to go home.”

  His brows shot upward. “This is your home.”

  “I beg of you—“

  “Syl Marinda—“ He pushed a hand through his hair, leaving it ruffled.

  “Stop calling me that!” Regretting her outburst, she went on more quietly. “My name is Mara.”

  “I prefer your mother’s choice of name for you rather than that of thieves.”

  She had no answer for that, but she couldn’t have spoken past the lump closing her throat.

  “You ask the impossible.” He took her hands. “Try to understand.”

  “Why?”

  “You are my only child and heir. I refuse to put you at risk”

  She pulled away. “But what of the Lof Raelein and her children?” Heat surged up her neck. It had been indelicate to bring up childbirth, even in a future sense.

  “She…cannot bear children.”

  Her cheeks flamed. “My presence can’t make it any easier for her.”

  “You must stop thinking of yourself as a burden.”

  How well he read her. “I need to hear those words from her.”

  “Arillia would have acknowledged you last night.”

  And she had sent her excuses. “Today I will come to the hall.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And yet I wish…If only I could see Mam again.”

  “It would not be safe.”

  “Ever?” Her lower lip trembled as tears fell to her cheeks.

  “My daughter—“ He tracked a tear with his thumb. “Never doubt that this is where you belong. Your place is with me, and the Kindren need you. As a trueborn daughter of Rivenn, you will one day rule Faeraven.”

  

  Kai gripped the prayer rail. He determined to wait upon Lof Yuel each day until he received an answer to the question raging within him. Why did Shae remain trapped between worlds? She had sacrificed enough. If only he could take her place, he would gladly free her. He’d once knelt with her and Elcon in this very place to pray for the life of Lof Raelein Maeven, the mother who’d revealed herself to Shae just before dying. As strong-minded as her mother, Shae had sorely tried his patience. At the memory, a smile played at his lips but faded with the longing to hold her again. Since she had gone through the gateway of Gilead Riann to the corridor between worlds, his life remained suspended with hers.

  “Why?” The plea wrenched from his soul and echoed through the Place of Prayer to fade into silence. He rose to his feet.

  On the morrow, he would ask again.

  

  The door to Arillia’s chamber swung open the first time Elcon knocked, a positive sign. His wife’s maid bowed as he entered. “The Lof Raelein is unable to receive you, Lof Shraen.”

  Irritation seethed through him, and he cast a glance at the inner chamber door, firmly shut against him. “Very well.” He spoke with irritation. “Pray tell her that, should she remember she has a husband, she must seek him.”

  He stomped down the corridor and shut his chamber door behind him with a satisfying bang that he at once regretted. After his marriage to Aewen foisted a Lof Raelein of Elder blood on the Kindren, he’d worked hard to regain their respect. He must not appear weak in leading his own household, especially after the warning Emmerich had sent through Kai. With Freaer challenging his rulership, he could not risk losing the loyalty of any more of his people.

  A knock sounded, and Anders opened the outer door to Kai, seemingly summoned by his thoughts. Elcon strode across the chamber to greet him. “Come into my meeting chamber. I want to know more about what Emmerich said.”

  Kai took his accustomed place at the strongwood table while Anders closed the door. “I gave you the gist of it. Freaer will soon strike Torindan from the stronghold of Pilaer.”

  Elcon gripped the armrests of his chair. “It’s hard to consider war after being so long at peace. I haven’t sent you home to Whellein as you deserve, but you will return there, I promise, once we win peace.”

  Kai said nothing but gazed past him to a tapestry depicting two figures locked in mortal combat as they fell together into the Well of Light.

  Elcon studied the depiction of his ancestor’s heroic deed. “If only Kunrat’s sacrifice had been enough to bind Freaer within Lohen Keil forever, we would not now face war.”

  “I can’t bear going home without Shae, anyway.”

  Quick sympathy chased away Elcon’s lingering resentment over Kai’s return from Lohen Keil without his sister. “I miss her, too.” He cleared his throat. “Tell me, where is Emmerich now?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  Kai’s response came as no surprise. Elcon nodded. “He keeps his own counsel.”

  “Craelin tells me he saved Torindan when Freaer besieged it.”

  “We have need of a miracle again.”

  

  Rand strained to see in the dimness. From the scuffling, the rats had returned. He could snatch scraps of sleep while propped in a sitting position until the rats moved in again. He kicked at the rodents, groaning when the movement jarred his injured shoulder. Hunger crawled in his belly. He’d received no food since being lowered into the dungeon by ropes. How many days had passed since then, he had no idea. If his father failed to remember him, he would die in this wretched place.

  His mother was not here, or at least he did not hear a woman’s voice among those haunting the dungeon. He hoped his father had released
her but suspected she had been imprisoned elsewhere, perhaps in one of the tower cells.

  Cold seeped into his bones, making him shiver and aggravating the wounds Urwan had inflicted on him. To ease the pain in his body, he sent his thoughts winging past the walls of stone confining him. In his mind’s eye, he walked shaded paths in a wilderness where trees lifted their arms in praise to Lof Yuel, bright birds flitted, and streams ran clear…

  Rustling sounds wrenched him from sleep. He jerked awake, already kicking, and drove the tiny fiends away. This time the rodents didn’t retreat as far, but remained barely out of range as they watched him.

  An image of Mara came to soothe him but also awakened his yearning to live. Did she ever think of him?

  He frowned. She might, but with loathing. Memories of her arose before him. He watched her ride through the storm to him, lie down to sleep in meadow grass not far from where he lay, and comb her hair by morning. He smiled. Her lips had softened under his when he’d kissed her at the waterfall, signaling her surrender to passion. He drifted in a tide of longing…

  The scritch of tiny claws on stone warned him. He’d fallen sideways, and one of his tormenters snuffled in his hair. The rodent squealed as it hit the wall. Others crept toward him. He booted the vermin more violently than before.

  The rats moved away but returned to ring him, staring with glowing eyes. Rand glared back at them, determined to remain awake. “Lof Yuel, help me.” He breathed the prayer.

  A flame flickered from above as a lanthorn swinging on a rope lowered. The circle of light spread down the walls, and the rats scampered off. Rand raised a hand to shield his eyes and lurched to his feet. He braced against the wall to steady himself in the cramped cell. A rope with a loop at one end fell before him, looking for all the world like a hangman’s noose.

  “If you still live, come up!” Urwan’s gravelly voice called from above. “The Lof Shraen summons you.”

  Rand wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer the company of rats to another encounter with the garn, but he caught the rope and put his foot in the loop. It spun him around as he rose, and it was all he could do to hang on. Heat from the lanthorn touched him in passing. The rope carried him a long way up. Rough hands grabbed at him and heaved him over the parapet surrounding the dungeon. He would have lain there like a stunned fish, gasping and blinking in the light of day, but for the booted foot that slammed into his side. “Rise!”

  He struggled to his feet, just making out the dark shape that must be Urwan. A hand struck his back, and he pitched forward but caught himself with his hands. The garn hauled him to his feet and hurtled him forward. Rand stumbled onward with a growing sense of dread. Being remembered by his father might be worse than being forgotten.

  The golden likeness of Freaer stood in the alcove, exactly as if nothing had happened. No cracks marred the floor, but some of the marble tiles shone more than others. His father would have had replacements quarried at once.

  Rand’s knife had vanished from the floor where it fell. Had Urwan snatched it up? Or maybe his father had taken it. Should he reveal that the blade held the poison of a grillon? If he did, they might use it on him for sport. While his death seemed inevitable, he’d rather not help it along.

  Urwan renewed his shoving, as if to prove he wasn’t shirking his duty.

  Rand’s father, looked up from a platter of crobok legs at a small table.

  A chill walked down Rand’s spine. Had he been rash enough to hold any lingering hope for mercy, the calculated fury on the face before him would have dispelled it.

  His father jumped to his feet. “My son.”

  Rand had long yearned for this very acknowledgment on his father’s lips, but revulsion shuddered through him rather than the joy he’d imagined. He waited in silent resignation for the pronouncement of his doom.

  His father circled him. “You interest me. I never thought you’d find the courage to attempt taking my life. Although you were foolish enough to spare it, that may not indicate weakness, but rather lack of experience. I left you too long with your mother, neglecting your training. Well, no longer. You deserve a chance at redemption.”

  Rand kept his mouth shut. Announcing that he’d be unable to fulfill whatever ghastly assignment his father had in mind could end his life on the spot.

  “Urwan will take you to the prison tower, where you will remain during your training.”

  “Training?”

  His father smiled. “I’ve decided to let Draegmor make a warrior out of you.”

  15

  OUT OF BALANCE

  Arillia lifted her head from the pillow as her maid entered carrying an earthen jar. With her copper braid falling across one shoulder and her blue eyes tilted at the corners, Lyneth looked young and fresh. Arillia turned her face to the wall.

  “Don’t take on so, Lof Raelein,” Lyneth said in a gentle voice.

  Arillia balled her hands into fists. “I should never have married Elcon.”

  “Hasty words bring swift regrets.”

  She fell silent, chastened by her maid.

  Liquid splashed. Lyneth wrung out a cloth above a blue wash bowl decorated with white unibeasts “Let me bathe your eyes, milady.” She coaxed. “I’ve made an infusion of yarrow and mullein.”

  “Very well.” Arillia surrendered to her care, sighing when Lyneth placed the rag’s coolness against her aching eyelids. If only all her hurts could be as readily soothed. Last night she had braced herself to acknowledge Aewen’s child, only to be ignored. The vixen’s rejection had come as a shock but also a relief. She could hope to be spared the ordeal again tonight, but sooner or later she’d have to accept the child, may Lof Yuel forgive her the lie. Elcon wanted a dutiful wife, and she must give him one.

  Prompted by the maid, she chose a kirtle of plum velvet, one of Elcon’s favorites, and girded her waist with golden links. Lyneth wound her hair into a braided coronet. Arillia frowned at the mirror glass, for it revealed that the jewels in her hair shone brighter than her eyes. She entered the great hall with her stomach in knots. Her husband’s gaze clung to hers in a silent plea that made her breathing lurch. Ignoring her desire to be in his arms, she crossed the hall to stand before him with dignity.

  Elcon inclined his head to her with a wry smile but also a look of pain. Did he suffer as she did? Satisfaction tingled through her at the thought.

  And yet…

  She did not really wish to hurt him. He’d denied himself for her sake, ignoring his desire for children and the need of Faeraven for an heir. His daughter turning up alive might be Lof Yuel’s provision to them both. Elcon thought so, at least, and she would not stand in his way.

  She could summon no answering smile but rested a hand on his arm.

  He searched her eyes, his sadness chiding her, and covered her hand with his own. “Come.”

  He led her up the steps to the dais at the far end of the chamber and seated her in the carved and gilded chair beside his own. The aroma of steaming yellowroot, sausage, and onion soup scented the air as servants carried in trenchers and platters laden with food, the first of many courses. Bread made from flour sifted thrice to remove impurities sat beside a bowl of fresh-churned butter, while smoked perckens with their heads and fins intact emitted a heady aroma. With no appetite, she’d dreaded the thought of eating but now looked forward to the task. She picked up the horn cup before her. It held a pale amber liquid that, when sipped, delivered the mellow sweetness of cider.

  Below the dais, guardians of Rivenn lined up at boards on trestles. Flames leaped in three cavernous fireplaces in the outer wall. Musicians struck up a lively melody in the minstrels’ galley elevated at the other end of the great hall.

  Kai escorted Aewen’s daughter through the open doors beneath the main archway. The emerald velvet she wore highlighted her dark beauty, so like her mother’s. Cider caught at the back of Arillia’s throat, and she swallowed to avoid choking. The maiden carried herself with all the nobility of a daughter of Riven
n, she had to admit.

  Kai guided the maiden on his arm to stand below the dais. She curtseyed and her glance touched Arillia’s, light as a butterfly, before flitting away.

  Elcon rose, and those seated at the tables below the dais stood as well.. “Pray welcome Syl Marinda, Raena of Rivenn, and Lof Raena of Faeraven, the daughter now restored to me.” He made the announcement to everyone gathered, but Arillia knew he directed the words to her. The maiden gazing up at her had eyes the green of seawater, like her father’s. Arillia’s heart pounded at the discovery. Aewen’s eyes had been blue.

  “Lof Raena Syl Marinda, you may greet Lof Raelein Arillia.” Elcon gave them a formal introduction.

  With Kai beside her, Elcon’s daughter climbed the steps. Fear flickered across her face, and sudden sympathy washed through Arillia in a flood that soothed the dryness of her heart. She had no need of Elcon’s urging, but she extended her hand to his daughter.

  A look of surprise lit the maiden’s face. Hesitantly, she placed a trembling hand in Arillia’s. “I’m happy to meet you, Lof Raelein.”

  Arillia barely caught her whisper, so quietly did she speak. What had this child endured to roughen her hands with calluses? Arillia’s conscience smote her. Buried in her own misery, she had spared little thought for anyone else. She smiled and a bitter root deep within withered and died. “Sit here, beside me.”

  “You honor me.” The child had her father’s smile, too, and something of his charm.

  Arillia’s next sip of cider went down more easily.

  

  Early light fell across Kai through the high windows in the allerstaed. He bowed his head but could not compose himself for prayer. One memory never left him, that of Shae gazing at him across the chasm of Lohen Keil before walking through the gate of Gilead Riann while, singing her own death song. His throat swelled now, as it had then, with pride and sorrow.

  “She once asked me to release her.” He rose, his words to Lof Yuel ringing through the silent chamber. “I could not do it then, but it is the only way to gain peace.” He pulled in an aching breath. “I release her to you.”