Royal Airs (40 page)

Zoe sent Josetta one quick look, apologetic but brimming with laughter. “Well, yes, I have noticed. It’s just not polite to point such things out.”

Josetta could feel the blush heating her cheeks, but she willed her embarrassment to slink meekly away. Corene was like Darien; you had to face her down. “We said you could ask any question, but we didn’t say we had to answer,” she said brightly. “So I’m not going to.”

Corene gazed speculatively at Rafe, and he laughed. “Hey, I already answered mine,” he said.

She flounced back in her chair. “Well, the truth is obvious anyway,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t have wasted your time asking,” Josetta said.

Corene gathered up the cards. “Let’s play another game,” she suggested.

The collective “No!” was almost lost in the sudden jolt as the elaymotive lurched to a halt amid a series of squeals and clatters. Zoe was on her feet as soon as the vehicle stopped shuddering. “Looks like we’ve arrived,” she said. “Time for this uncomfortable meeting to begin.”

TWENTY-ONE

J
osetta had always loved the entrance to Taro Frothen’s estate. The main courtyard more closely resembled a garden, offering an exuberant display of flowers and bushes and trees that rioted with a heady mix of scents and colors. This area subtly fed into a wide stone patio shaded by a trellis hung with grapevines, honeysuckle, and wild ivy. It was easy to miss the point where you stepped from the patio into the
kierten
, which was filled with potted shrubs and climbing plants that wound their way up the walls and halfway across the ceiling.

It could hardly have been more obvious that this was the homestead of the torz prime.

Servants instantly appeared to usher them through the
kierten
and into an equally lovely room filled with afternoon sunlight and groupings of plush, comfortable furniture. Josetta recognized the steward, a solid-looking, eminently practical woman who had been there since Josetta was a child. “I’ll tell the prime you’ve arrived,” she said tranquilly. “I don’t believe he told me you were coming.”

“He didn’t know,” Darien replied.

Zoe waited till the steward was out of the room before she said, “He won’t be entirely surprised, though. When I’m at my grandmother’s house, I can sense the presence of other people as soon as they’ve drawn within a mile. I can feel their heartbeats. Taro will have some similar way of sensing our proximity.”

Darien lifted his eyebrows. “Will he have had enough time to sequester Odelia?”

“Maybe,” Zoe replied. “But I don’t suppose that matters. Since you’re not going to leave until you’ve seen her.”

Darien turned toward the door, because they could all catch the sound of purposeful footsteps striding down the hall. “No,” he said, “I’m not.”

Seconds later, Taro barreled through the door, bringing such force of personality that Josetta, Corene, and Rafe all stepped backward. The torz prime was annoyed and not bothering to hide the fact. His normally sleepy, agreeable face was drawn into a frown, and he was consciously using his bulky body to express a certain latent menace. This was a man who would win any physical competition that required brute strength or endurance, and he was not above reminding his visitors of that fact.

“Darien,” he said, his voice a low rumble of barely restrained displeasure. “How kind of you to drop by.”

“You can hardly be surprised to see me,” Darien answered quietly.

“And yet I am.” Taro nodded at each of the women in turn. “Zoe. Princesses.” If he saw Rafe, he gave no sign. Josetta thought that maybe, like Kayle, he found Rafe invisible, his foreign flesh impervious to Taro’s particular brand of perceptive magic. “How long do you plan to stay?”

“Long enough to reassure ourselves that Princess Odelia is well and healthy.”

Even as he said the words, Romelle hurried into the room. She was so plainly dressed she might have been working in the garden five minutes earlier, or sewing in the linen room. Her hair was pulled loosely back from her face in a girlish style. She looked so young, Josetta thought. Scarcely more than twenty-five, and could have passed for nineteen. Young and defiant and more than a little afraid.

“You
are
here!” she exclaimed. “Goodness, we’re not prepared for guests, but—we’re happy to have you, I suppose.”

Taro turned to her, communicating something with his eyes. “They want to see Odelia,” he said.

“Oh! Well, of course! She’s playing outside, but I’ll just have one of the maids fetch her—”

“Odelia,” Taro repeated, a note of finality in his voice. “Zoe will know.”

Romelle stared back at him for a long moment, while her shoulders drooped and all her defiance seemed to leak away. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but all she could manage was a gesture, lifting both hands and letting them fall.

Taro turned back to the unwelcome visitors. Some of his own anger seemed to have faded; Josetta thought now he just looked sad. “Follow me. It goes better if we bring
you
to
her
.”

Josetta exchanged a look with Zoe, who wasn’t troubling to hide her apprehension. Darien wore no expression at all as he fell in step behind Taro and Romelle. Corene touched Josetta’s arm and whispered, “I don’t like this. Something’s wrong.”

“I think something’s been wrong for a while,” Josetta whispered back. She glanced at Rafe, who looked baffled and uncertain. They had explained the situation to him, but she doubted it had the same resonance for him. He had not been brought up at court; he did not understand what it meant for an heir to be compromised.

Their small parade wound through Taro’s warm and welcoming house. There were flowers everywhere, and small nooks holding statues of laughing children, and window seats covered with tumbles of books. Josetta could understand why Romelle frequently refused invitations to come to court; if she lived here, she might always want to stay, too. It felt nourishing, somehow—safe. A place where you could stay forever and not be afraid.

They traversed the entire bottom story and headed up a polished wood stairwell to the third floor. The wide landing looked much like the
kierten
; it was an open, sunny place brightened even more with buckets of fresh flowers. A couple of hallways led to what appeared to be smaller rooms, probably bedrooms, but most of this level was taken up by a large chamber directly in front of them, guarded by a half-open door.

“This is where Odelia spends most of her time,” Taro said quietly. “Mally has rooms downstairs, where the rest of the family lives, but Odelia prefers solitude and silence.”

Romelle had hurried ahead of them into the big room. Josetta saw her confer briefly with a woman inside—a nursemaid or tutor, perhaps—and then turn back to give Taro one brief, despairing look.

“She’s inside?” Darien asked, and, when Taro nodded, he strode forward. The rest of them followed, dragging their feet, not sure what they would find on the other side of the door.

At first, Josetta thought it was nothing out of the ordinary. The room was large and bright, with sunlight pouring through banks of wide windows. There were furniture groupings and piles of toys lining the walls, but the majority of the room was given over to open space—just polished hardwood flooring and great squares of sunlight. It took a moment to realize that the windows were a little higher than you might expect them to be, that all the furniture was soft, upholstered, without a sharp edge on any table or armrest.

Odelia knelt in the middle of the open space, her eyes closed, maybe humming a song to herself. She looked very much as Mally had the last time Josetta had seen her—she had the same dark hair that twisted into natural curls, the same milky-rose complexion that looked so much like Romelle’s. She probably had the same dark eyes, but it was impossible to tell, since her lids remained closed even once they all stepped into the room.

Darien started forward, as if he would crouch down and interrogate her, but Taro flung out a hand to hold him in place. “Wait,” he said, and his quiet voice was so forceful that even Darien obeyed.

Romelle had approached Odelia cautiously and dropped to her knees. “Hey, baby,” she said in a low tone. “There are some people here who’d like to meet you.”

Odelia didn’t answer or open her eyes. If anything, she seemed to rock a little faster.

Romelle tried again. “Do you think you could stand up and be introduced to them? It’s your sisters Corene and Josetta. And Zoe. Do you remember Zoe?”

“What’s wrong with her?” Darien asked Taro in an undervoice, but Taro just shook his head.

Romelle put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and spoke in a firmer voice. “Odelia. Do you hear me? I want you to come meet some people.”

Odelia lifted her hands to cover her ears, and began humming loudly enough for them to hear. Except she wasn’t producing a song—it was more like a thin, high wail that trembled over a couple of notes, and she only stopped long enough to take a breath and then resume.

Romelle came abruptly to her feet, pulling Odelia up with her. “Stop that. You know how to behave when there’s company. Come meet our guests.”

Without answering, Odelia jerked her head and pulled free. Still keeping her hands over her ears, still singing that atonal song, she began spinning around in a tight spiral, not looking at her mother, at the nursemaid, or at the strangers clustered in the doorway, who were staring at her in slowly growing consternation and dread.

Romelle pressed her lips together, and then gazed hopelessly at Taro. He turned to Darien. “When she gets like this, it’s sometimes an hour before she stops,” he said quietly. “Sometimes she gets so dizzy she falls to the floor, and then she curls in on herself and cries until she falls asleep. And when she wakes up, she stands up and starts spinning again. This can go on for days.”

“But she—what causes this behavior? How often does it occur?” Darien asked. “Was she simply nervous because she realized strangers were in the house?”

Taro stared at him. “This
is
her behavior,” he said. “Some days less extreme. Some days she will tolerate having others in the room, though she won’t speak to us or meet our eyes. We’ve thought that perhaps she doesn’t realize we’re actually present. Other days, she’s like this. Like one raw exposed nerve, and any noises, any rapid movements, certain kinds of light, make her frantic. She sings and spins, I think, to shut out those sounds and motions. Sometimes she can’t endure the feel of clothing on her body. Sometimes she can’t endure the taste of food. And she never speaks.”

“Taro—how long has she been this way?” Zoe asked, her voice full of wretchedness and compassion.

“Maybe two years. She wasn’t quite two when she started developing these behaviors. Before then, she seemed like every other child I have ever held, and I have known hundreds. Clever and engaged and happy enough. But she gradually began to withdraw from us, more and more every quintile, every nineday, and now I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw the Odelia that I remember.”

There was a long silence while Darien watched Odelia make her ceaseless clumsy
pirouettes in the oblivious sunshine.

“You should have told me,” Darien said at last.

“Should I?” Taro replied. “When I didn’t understand why the change had started and I didn’t know if it might reverse itself? To tell you would have been to raise doubts about her status as heir. I did not want to take away her birthright for what might be a condition that healed itself.”

Darien gave him one long, stern look. “And do you acknowledge now that the passage of two or more years argues against the possibility that this is temporary?”

“I believe she still might improve,” Taro began, but when Darien’s face showed incredulity, he nodded, and bowed his big head. “I believe she might,” he went on, “but not enough to assume the duties that would fall to the queen.”

“Then we have some hard decisions to make,” Darien said.

Josetta was amazed that he could move on so quickly from shock and sadness, where she was currently mired, and begin focusing on future considerations. But she supposed he had no choice. None of them did.

“We need to assemble the other primes and discuss what needs to be done next,” Zoe said in a subdued voice.

“Which leads me to the next question,” Darien said. “Besides the people in this room, who knows of her condition?”

“My wife and three women from my estate who share the primary burden of watching her. No one else.”

“Mally? Natalie?” Zoe asked.

Taro shook his head. “We have kept them segregated from her for more than a year. We have been too afraid of what they might in all innocence say about Odelia when they are at public functions. Mally is too shy and obedient to ask many questions, but Natalie has been very vocal about wanting to know where her sister is. At least—she used to be.” He sighed and rubbed a big hand across his face. “Now Natalie has gotten used to calling Mally ‘Odelia’ and she sometimes seems to forget there are two different girls. But twice in the past quintile we have found her coming up these stairs, so I believe she knows there is something strange in the house. She just doesn’t know how strange.”

As they spoke, they continued watching Odelia spin and sing, completely lost in her own private world. Josetta watched Romelle as the queen watched her daughter, her face a study in loss and devastation. When Odelia overbalanced and tipped to the floor, making no attempt to get up again, Romelle looked as if she couldn’t bear it any longer. Instead of sitting down to comfort the girl, Romelle turned away, covering her face with her hands.

It was, strangely, Corene who stepped forward, ignoring Zoe’s outstretched hand and Darien’s “Corene, no.” Her face solemn, her approach gradual and unalarming, she drew closer, then dropped to her hands and knees and crawled the last few yards to Odelia’s side. She seemed to be speaking, but her voice was so low, Josetta couldn’t catch a word. When she put her arms around Odelia, the little girl first started a wordless shrieking, flapping her hands as if to fly away. But Corene persisted, picking her up, pulling Odelia into her lap, wrapping her arms around the girl and bending her red head over the dark one. Enclosing her, almost, in a living cocoon of warmth and safety.