“Firewood?” Alara asked.
“It is easier for me to control fire than ice and water. I’d like to have a ready source of it at all times.” Emariya’s eyes gleamed, proud of her command of her gift.
Her grandmother’s eyes grew wide, but she didn’t say anything.
Garith headed for the door. “Blaine, want to help me start getting the wagons organized?”
Jessa also stood. “I’m going to go join Mama; we’ll start cooking and packaging food. You could put in your letters to the other Councilors that you need them to bring whatever food they can spare as well.”
“That’s a good idea.” Emariya smiled at Jessa in thanks.
“Do you want to leave some of our men here, to help protect Mairi and the Rest?” Torian asked.
“Absolutely not,” Emariya said. “We have to assume my brother is working on a plan to take over Thalmas as well as Sheas. He can’t very well do that with you in line to inherit the throne. I’d feel much better knowing you are well-guarded.”
Torian stumbled, his legs giving out beneath him as if he’d been struck physically by her words.
Emariya watched helplessly as he managed to right his balance by catching the edge of her father’s solid desk. “Torian!” she cried out.
His eyes, glossed over and unfocused, flitted rapidly from side to side. Her grandparents rushed over and helped ease him into a plush chair.
“What’s wrong with him?” Emariya said.
Kahl said, “I think he’s having a vision.” Worried glances passed between her grandparents.
Emariya gently rubbed Torian’s hand, just trying to let him know she was still there, by his side.
Having him there in front of her yet so obviously absent left her uneasy.
Was this what it was like for
him, when I was in my mother’s mental prison?
“So, now what?” Emariya asked. “The other time when he had a vision, it was very brief.”
“He collapsed then,” her grandmother reminded her. “This seems a bit different.”
Emariya’s heart threatened to split in two as she watched her strong, handsome prince suffer through the unknown scenes playing out before his eyes. Whatever he was seeing, he looked nearly shattered. As quickly as it had come on, it ended. Torian’s gray eyes focused and he clutched at her hands like a lifeline, anchoring himself to reality.
Her momentary relief was short-lived. Torian unleashed a primal, earth-shattering growl and his eyes darkened to charcoal pits. His voice sliced through the room, raw and unexpected. “I saw myself kill my sister. I think I have to.” His last words sounded as if he were choking.
The room fell as silent as the plains the moment before storm clouds release their downpour—that one clear, quiet calm before the torrent is unleashed.
While her grandparent’s faces continued to register their shock, Emariya found her voice.
“What!?”
“He is going to wed her.”
“As if us Roths breeding crazy isn’t enough, now we have to go and marry it.” Kahl grumbled.
Alara glared at her husband. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it, dear.”
“Think what you want.” Torian ran his hands through his hair, blinking rapidly. “Her child will wreak havoc on our world...and...and...” Grief made his voice thick as he struggled to form words. “To take control of The Corners, Reeve will kill us all. All of us... My father. Me...” His eyes turned to Emariya, and they were filled with such an acute, bottomless grief.
Emariya’s heart rose in her throat and she crouched down before him, taking both his hands in hers.
Torian’s shoulders shook with the intensity of his emotion. “I could bear that, if I had to. But...the rest, I could not. He will kill Riya too.”
Hearing of her own death being foretold should have been a larger blow, but all Emariya could focus on was Torian’s immense and consuming grief. “But we don’t know that your vision will come true. And that is a reason for us to concentrate on stopping my brother. Not a reason for us to kill your sister.”
Torian shook his head. “I wish it were so, but it is the only way to be sure. If we kill her, he’d have no reason to kill you, and none of his partners would have reason to either. The only way this ends is when she is no more. Otherwise, someone may always try to use her, after circumventing us. I love my sister, but she wouldn’t want the future I’ve seen either. Unfortunately, Reeve and his associates have set their plans to revolve around her. If Reeve dies, Khane would take her for himself. Or Alrec...”
“Then we kill all of
them.
Not Terin. There are other ways.”
His eyes were as sure as she’d ever seen them. “Emariya, I cannot lose you.
I will not lose you.
I told you the day you woke from your mother’s keeping. If I have to choose between you and my sister, I choose you.”
Emariya dropped his hands and stood. “Well I choose sense. We will find another way. Neither her nor I are dying any time soon.” The door behind her closed, and she looked up. Everyone else had filed out, leaving her and Torian alone.
Torian rose to his feet but turned away, leaning his shoulder against a windowsill as he stared into the distance. “We don’t always have a choice in the path we take. I can’t control what I see.”
“You
can
control what you do. Have you taken complete leave of your senses? You’re acting as addled as your fa—” Emariya stopped, biting her lip to hold back words she wouldn’t be able to unsay.
“Say it.” Torian’s voice was hard. “I’m acting like my father used to. Crazy.”
Why evade the truth? “Yes.”
Love, fear, and determination warred for dominion of his eyes as he looked at her over his shoulder. “If my options are to be as crazy as my father because of what I’ve seen, or to be as crazy as your father was because he survived losing the love of his life, I’ll choose mine. Each and every time, whether you like it or not.”
Emariya’s hands balled into fists, and she told herself the tears in her eyes were a result of her nails digging into her palms. Holding back a sob, she spun and fled.
Torian might be convinced he has
to save his sister from herself, but somehow I will save him from himself before he does something we
will all regret. I can’t lose him too.
Later that afternoon, as she sifted through her father’s books, a foot scuffling across the floor behind her made Emariya turn. She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face as she saw Garith leaning against the door frame, watching her.
His messy blond hair almost covered his eyes, but nothing could hide the playfulness dancing through his expression. It would seem that she wasn’t the only one enjoying being at home, even if sadness rested just below the surface. His eyes reflected no shame in being caught watching her.
Emariya thanked The Three for such a normal, familiar moment.
“Were you looking for me, or for Torian?”
“You,” he said softly. “Torian and Blaine are at my father’s shop, conferring about additional weapons.”
“Oh, is everything all right?” she asked, resignation creeping through her tone. She really couldn’t face another problem right at that moment. Her anger had subsided since her argument earlier with Torian, leaving a shell of sorrow behind in its wake. She’d not yet had time to tell Garith of the incident.
“I thought maybe you’d like to take a walk with me.”
Emariya beamed, letting out a long breath. “I’d like that very much.” A walk would do her good, and might help her shake her uneasy thoughts.
Garith pulled her cloak from behind his back, offering it to her.
Laughing, Emariya took it and draped it around her shoulders. “Sure I would say yes, were you?”
“Of course.”
The two guards stationed outside of her chambers began to follow her toward the estate entrance.
Emariya stopped them with a firm smile. “You may wait here.”
“But we were instructed—”
“You were just instructed by me to remain here, and I’ll hear not another word about it.”
Garith laughed as they walked, unaccompanied, out the door. “You’re getting good at this princess stuff.”
“It was bound to happen eventually.” She summoned her most innocent smile and turned it upon him.
He delighted her with a familiar and lighthearted grin. “Well, Princess Ahlen, how will Prince Ahlen feel about you not bringing your guards?”
“I brought you,” Emariya said. “Do you doubt your ability to protect me?”
“If the empty corn fields rise in revolt, I am sure I can wrestle them into submission.” Garith winked.
“See, we’re fine then.” She sighed, letting the sun warm her back and soothe away a few of her worries. The birds sung in greeting, and her spirits began to lift.
They walked quietly, heading by unspoken agreement toward her small garden, where they’d spent so much time together.
“What’s on your mind, Riya?” Garith asked after a while.
“You’re the one who summoned me for a walk.”
“I suppose I just wanted to spend some time with my friend Riya, instead of Princess Ahlen, the bride of another, for a short while before we depart again.” His voice adopted a tone of wistfulness.
“I understand,” Emariya said. “I miss when things used to be so much simpler.” As they walked she kept her eyes focused on the hills in the distance, painted a deep golden brown streaked with white rivulets of melting snow.
“Do you remember the last time we took this walk together?” Garith asked.
“The day we learned Torian wanted me to journey to Thalmas to marry him. You asked me if I would change.”
“You haven’t. Not in the ways I’d feared, anyway.” Garith offered a hand to steady her as they stepped around a patch of icy snow that had crusted over, refrozen after beginning to melt.
“I don’t know. I feel like nothing is really the same. I’m married, I’ve learned of my mother’s and Reeve’s trickery, and found that my father was here with me all along. I’m traveling with an army, positioning myself to lead not just the Council, but all of The Three Corners. I don’t think it is a question of whether I’ve changed. A better question would be, is anything the same?”
Garith spun to face her. “You are still you, Riya. Don’t forget that. You’re brave. You’re beautiful.
You’re strong. You’ve killed a man, yet retained your compassion. You’ve fallen in love, yet you haven’t forgotten your friends. You are the same Riya who has always inspired complete loyalty. Yes, your circumstances have changed, and you’ve grown wiser, but you haven’t really changed.”
Blushing, Emariya looked away.
Gently, Garith guided her chin back to face him. “Won’t you tell me what is bothering you?”
Emariya’s shoulders sagged, and she shook her head.
Garith’s hand dropped away from her face, and Emariya stepped back. Torian didn’t often act jealous of Garith, and they’d even become friends, but she didn’t need to instigate hard feelings. He’d be annoyed enough when he learned she’d left her guards behind. Hopefully he’d understand her pressing need to forget everything for a little while.
“You know I will always love you, Riya. Whether you’re married to another or not doesn’t change that.”
Emariya closed her eyes. “I know; The Three help me, but I know.” As much as she’d tried not to encourage it, she still found the thought oddly comforting.
“But as much as I love you, I need you to know that I have to be more than just the boy who loves you but can’t have you.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“I need you to keep treating me like the friend who knows you, even though you’re married. I don’t want to lose my friend.”
She nodded, understanding. “You’re right, of course. It’s just so hard to understand what he is thinking, and it has me conflicted. Torian had a vision earlier, after you left the study.”
“A bad one, I assume?” Garith’s words soaked through her resolve like a determined stream, persistently working to loosen a rock from the thick silt below.
She answered with a tortured whisper. “He said he was going to kill his sister.”
Garith’s eyes darkened. Emariya had forgotten that he and Terin had grown close while they were at the castle. “He said what?! Why?”
Emariya finally allowed the sob that had lodged in her throat since Torian’s outburst free.
“Because he feels like he has to make it clear he chooses me. I think he still feels guilty about our fight when we found out she was taken. He sees a disastrous chain of events unfolding, and if he removes her link, Reeve’s plans fall apart.”
“While I can understand that, that’s taking it too far.”
“Garith, promise me. You have to protect Terin. Even from Torian.”
He set his jaw angrily, and for a moment she thought he would refuse. “I will.”
They’d begun walking again but Emariya hadn’t noticed that they’d nearly reached her garden. She looked down at the winter-scarred ground and gasped. Her garden, once her place of eternal hope, had been diminished to nothing but dead weeds and the remnants of former glory. There were none of the usual early spring flowers and herbs trying to poke their way through. It was as if, in her absence, it had forgotten her.
She dropped to her knees and began to scoop the last bits of snow away from her lifeless garden.
Tears streamed down her face as she cried for what she had lost. Not over the dead flowers themselves, but the absence they embodied. The loss of Roel, and Leil, and the others tore through her so acutely as she stared helplessly at the brown foliage.
“Fix it.”
Garith’s words startled her.
Emariya sobbed harder. “I can’t.”
“You can if you use your gift.”
“For something as frivolous as dead flowers and herbs?” Emariya bit her lip, trying to stem the flow of tears. She shouldn’t be crying over this. She was supposed to be a strong, fierce leader. Not a silly girl crying over a garden.
“Those herbs might save our life, and your sadness is never frivolous to me. Fix it.”
She couldn’t heal the ache in her heart over Torian’s vision, or Roel’s death, but Garith was right.
Healing her garden was in her power. Most of what had changed, she couldn’t control, but this...this she could repair, putting it back the way it was before.