The Orphans' Promise (31 page)

Her words echoed in the hall, and all eyes were steadied on her. She had captivated them. Corenn shuddered at the mention of Yussa. They were Aleb’s mercenary troops, Grigán’s personal
enemy.
Mother Eurydis, the heirs had so many enemies
, Corenn thought.

“I choose Perbas of Ubresa, the kingdom’s regent and grand cleric of the Baronies, as the legitimate successor to the rights and responsibility of Junine’s crown. At my death, he will take the name Perbas of Junine and his line will inherit the throne. Barons, you know his valor and loyalty. From today, I ask that you treat him like one of our peers.”

“He’s not even nobility!” protested Adémir, the king of Phar. “You can’t give him the throne!”

“The crown of Junine will make him noble enough,” Séhane responded with specious logic.

“How can you do this?” Adémir persisted. “Give Junine to some beggar! I formally oppose it!”

“The treaties give you no right to interfere in my kingdom’s affairs,” Séhane curtly reminded them all. “You will either recognize my decision as a peer of the Baronies, or leave the alliance.”

The king swept his gaze across the room, looking for support. Some were ready to follow him in his rebellion, if only they could find more solid ground on which to form their objection.

“Let us consult the omens! If the gods favor him, I will bow to your chosen king.”

He didn’t say what he would do if the gods didn’t favor Perbas. Everything was unfolding as they had planned. Corenn started to concentrate. She wasn’t yet sure what she would have to do, but she was ready.

The king of Phar signaled to one of the members of his entourage. An old woman walked to the center of the crowd. She was covered in wrinkles and completely bald, which made her look like an overripe pear from Wastille. She awkwardly waved to the assembly and pulled out four pieces of ivory from a small leather purse embroidered with arcane runes.

Divination by Ithare dice. Very well.
This will be easy
, Corenn said to herself.

The soothsayer knelt down and chanted various incantations that were supposed to draw the gods’ attention. With surprising dexterity, she placed the four dice between her two thumbs and waited for a question.

“Is it just that Perbas ascend the throne of Junine?” Adémir asked.

It was a clever question. The symbolic arrangement of dice for “absolute yes” was rarely thrown. Many other combinations would have middling responses, which would be difficult to interpret. Corenn was sure the soothsayer would do her best to please her master.

She threw the dice abruptly, and the small ivory cubes rolled on the ground. Corenn had never sent her Will so quickly, but she was able to straighten two of the cubes without anyone noticing.

“Twice the Twins, and a triangle,” the king of Galen announced to the crowd, as he leaned over to see. “The gods give their blessing.”

“The triangle represents fire,” Adémir objected. “The
demons
are in favor. And wind is on the earth die. The situation is temporary, and demands more thorough reflection.”

Corenn had trouble believing that these kings would make political decisions on the throw of some dice, but they all seemed to take the soothsayer’s talents seriously. Finally, someone asked for the soothsayer’s interpretation.

The old woman remained still. A strange expression crept up her face, like a scowl she was unsuccessfully trying to hold back. Her mouth opened, letting out a trickle of saliva, and then a groan rose in her throat.

The people closest to her stepped back, while Corenn did the opposite and rushed to her aid. The Mother shook her,
even slapped her, but the old woman did not respond, staying motionless.

Suddenly, she gripped Corenn’s shoulder with surprising vigor and shoved her face close to Corenn’s. She stared into her eyes and spoke with venom in her voice. The sound that came from her mouth was that of a man tired by age and deformed by hatred.

She spat, “The heirs are going to die… soon. You will all die…”

She pronounced this last phrase with a hint of madness, and finished with a horrifying and ridiculous laugh. Two men finally came to help Corenn, who couldn’t release herself from the old woman’s steel grip. They unclasped her hands from Corenn and hurried the old woman to another room. Clearly, she had lost her mind.

The barons whispered, “What did she mean? Séhane has no children. Did she mean Perbas? But then, why say the heirs?”

No one had enjoyed the scene, not even those who could use it to their benefit.

Corenn was shocked, knowing all too well whom those words were meant for.

The days flowed by, and the heirs still hadn’t heard anything from the author of the mysterious letter. Maybe the journey from Mestèbe to Junine took more than six days; that is, if the stranger were really hiding out in the Rominian city. In any case, the heirs were growing impatient. Didn’t their message say, “We can help you”?

They tried to keep their minds off the strange event at the assembly of barons. The old woman’s trance hadn’t been some trick, as she still hadn’t recovered her wits. Corenn desperately
wanted to believe the soothsayer had been drugged by an excellent herbal specialist, someone who wanted their plans to backfire or to deter them from their quest. She was searching for a plausible scenario, something a mere mortal could do.

Deep down she was afraid, though. To be able to possess someone like that could mean their enemy had immeasurable powers. Powers that were so dangerous they almost made the Züu seem laughable. Perhaps their foe could see them now through some powerful lens of magic. There was no way to know. All they could do was wait, and keep waiting.

True to form, Corenn and Grigán took advantage of the downtime to make some progress with their students. The warrior managed to teach Bowbaq a few moves with a staff and a mace, although the giant endured the exercises with a pitiable resignation.

As for Rey, he kept himself busy playing dice. He ended up making a few enemies among Séhane’s guards, winning a few too many large bets. None of the heirs could figure out why he persisted in playing for money when he had enough gold to buy himself a palace.

No fools, Grigán and Corenn also suspected him of making friends with some of Séhane’s handmaidens. Some giggles here and winks there were more telling than a signed confession. The heirs didn’t give a margolin’s ass how Rey spent his evenings, so long as he didn’t bring them or Séhane any trouble. Fortunately for Rey, the pervading sense of morals in the Baronies was loose in this respect.

The Day of the Horse, the ninth day of the Hunter’s dékade, came to break the uncomfortable laziness everyone had settled into. It was a special day: Léti’s sixteenth new year.

The young woman spent the decidays before the apogee praying and meditating, as the Eurydian cult encouraged. Léti wasn’t
overly devout, but she always followed the rituals surrounding the new year scrupulously. They were meant as a sort of self-assessment, an evaluation of one’s actions over the past year, and a chance to decide on improvements for the coming year, with the Goddess’s help, of course.

Léti returned from her self-imposed isolation looking sad. Not much good had come to her this past year. She couldn’t see how she would do better in the future.

Despite her gloomy mood, her friends had decreed that it was her day. They all made such an effort to make her happy that in the end, she forgot her troubles for a while.

Rey offered her a performance of the classic comedy from the Upper Kingdoms,
Favel’s Misfortune
. There weren’t many lines in the play. It mainly relied on the main character’s ludicrous expressions. The actor had eagerly roped Yan and Bowbaq into the cast, providing them with only brief explanations on their roles, and the end result was a play that had very little resemblance to the original script. Rey had mastered his role superbly, and combined with Yan and Bowbaq’s clumsy improvisations, they managed to produce their desired effect: bring Léti to tears of laughter.

Next came the presents. It was a Junian custom for friends to offer gifts to those celebrating their new year, as a sign of affection. Séhane told her friends this little custom a few days before, and it had given them all the same idea. They surprised Léti by filling her arms with presents: some of them masked with wrapping, and others not.

Séhane gave Léti the painting of the emissaries, which had been hanging in the armory until then. The young woman would spend long moments every day contemplating it. In her eyes, the canvas was priceless, and she melted in thanks. But the gift giving had only just started.

Rey gave her a magnificent Lorelien rapier that resembled the one he had lent her before. Grigán examined the weapon apprehensively, but in the end could only agree: It was a beautiful sword crafted by a fastidious artisan. Despite Léti’s joy, the actor avoided Corenn’s disapproving looks.

Next, she examined the little horse figurine that Bowbaq had given her. It was a beautiful object, and she thanked him sincerely. The giant tried to explain, muddling his words the whole way, that the object wasn’t the real gift. It symbolized a promise, he said. He would domesticate any animal she chose. The young woman knew how long and difficult the process could be, even for an erjak. And she knew Bowbaq would build a strong and undying bond between her and the animal. It was a wonderful gift.

Corenn offered her a thick book that was beautifully embroidered and solidly bound. Léti flipped through it curiously, but there weren’t many illustrations.

“It’s beautiful, Aunt Corenn. But I don’t know how to read…”

“Ask Yan to teach you! I’m sure he’ll find the writing interesting.”

Léti nodded with a smile. Corenn had given her two good reasons to learn. Her aunt knew what she was doing, and she always seemed to get what she aimed for.

Next, the young woman opened up the heavy burlap sack that Grigán had offered her. She couldn’t hold back a shriek of joy when she discovered what was inside. Grigán had made her a black-leather outfit like his, minus the patches and twenty years of wear and tear. He had been working on the surprise for a long time. He had consulted one of the castle’s tailors to estimate Léti’s measurements, and then transmitted the specifications to one of the city’s tanners, who completed the difficult order.

The young woman admired the way the artisan had embedded plates of metal in the leather, reinforced the seams, and worked hard to make the outfit solid and sleek. She couldn’t resist the urge to try it on immediately and slipped it on over her clothes.

“You’re a real warrior now,” Yan teased.

“She could pass as your daughter dressed like that,” Rey remarked. “Any chance that was intentional?”

“I just wanted to give her something useful,” Grigán responded, defensively.

Still, the warrior blushed to his ears. The heirs had never seen him like that before. Léti gave him a warm thank-you and turned to the packet she had saved for last: Yan’s.

Her hands were almost trembling as she untied the fabric wrapped around a little object. Things between them had been much better since Léti’s conversation with Corenn. Nevertheless, the young man was still somehow distant. He had been upset with her on the day of the Promise and hadn’t shown any regrets about it. He was her friend, but wasn’t he more than just that?

As she opened the packet, she discovered a necklace. The links were finely crafted and from which hung a singular medallion: a shiny opal with a little golden scroll encased inside it.

“It’s pure silver,” Rey informed her. “What? Yan, you would have never told her yourself; I’m doing you a favor!”

Léti’s eyes welled up, and her voice was shaky as she thanked Yan, which embarrassed him.

“How did you get the scroll inside the opal?”

“Well, sort of by magic, actually,” he answered awkwardly.

It was the first time he had shown his power to someone other than Corenn, who hadn’t known about this.

Corenn gave him an admiring nod. At this point in his training, Yan was already capable of some surprising things.

Crépel’s arrival interrupted them. Only something important could bring him to disturb Séhane.

“Majesty. A Maz from Mestèbe requests to see you. I think she’s the one you’ve been waiting for.”

Hearing the news, the heirs all jumped up as if they were one being. They were all anxious to meet the woman as soon as possible.

Léti didn’t have the chance to ask Yan her second question. But she felt better when she realized it was probably better that way.

From that day on, she would dream about what Yan could have possibly written to her on that golden scroll inside her medallion.