The Rose Throne (11 page)

The next morning, Issa dressed in her best riding gown, the blue cotton one that Lady Neca had said brought out the color in her cheeks. She put her hair
in several braids and looped them around her ears, then stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her maid came in and clucked at her, undoing the braids and plaiting her hair in one large piece down her back, as before.

“You look beautiful, Your Majesty, as you always do,” said the maid as Issa stared at herself critically in the mirror. How did she look to a man like Duke Kellin, who spent all his time in King Haikor’s court, with the wealth of the world at his feet and another princess at his side?

Lady Neca met Issa at the stables. “I did not know you were coming, Your Majesty. But I am very glad for your company. You do look a little flushed, though. Are you ill?”

“No!” said Issa quickly. “No, I am well. I am only warm with the thought of the exercise to come.”

Lady Neca nodded. “Of course. If you say so.”

Issa was helped to mount her horse by one of the servants, and then Duke Kellin led them out of the castle gates with Lady Neca by Issa’s side. She loved the smell of a bright autumn day. The sun rose late at this time of year, but when the sky was clear and blue, she could feel the neweyr deep below the earth, sleeping and becoming stronger with the rest. The hills were mostly gray, but there were occasional spots of
yellow and blue from the fall flowers that grew by the streams.

“You have a fine seat,” said a voice next to her. It was Kellin.

She glanced about and realized that she had gone too far ahead and that the rest of the company was behind her. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said. Now it was her turn to apologize.

“I worried that you might be headed to the land bridge on your own, too impatient to wait for next summer,” said Kellin, smiling.

If this was his attempt at teasing, it felt awkward and forced.

The land bridge was a half-day’s journey from the castle of Weirland. The farther north in Weirland, the colder and more difficult the terrain, even with the help of the neweyr. Both island capitals were nearly at the southern end of their kingdoms.

“I thought we would go north,” said Issa. “To see as much as possible that is different from Rurik’s landscape.” The hills here were rocky and black, not covered in green, and the trees were smaller and already bare of leaves.

“Would you like to lead?” asked Kellin.

“If you are not afraid of where I shall take you?”
said Issa. Without another word to Kellin, Issa kicked her horse to a gallop and took them north to the line where only pine trees grew. The line had been pushed back year by year by the neweyr and had in former years been much closer to the castle. Here were real mountains, not just the hills around the castle, and there were deep black scars where nothing grew at all, places some said had still not recovered from King Arhort’s grief and rage a thousand years before.

Issa could feel the neweyr even here, though it was a starker, quieter kind than she felt at home. She reined in the horse and felt at peace.

“You are trying to show how good a horsewoman you are,” said Kellin, breathing hard as he came up to her side once more. “So that I can warn Prince Edik never to challenge you.”

“I only wanted to be sure that you saw this part of Weirland.” She gestured to the mountains. “Rugged, scarred, even barren in looks. But deep within, there is life.”

“I see,” said Kellin.

She turned away. “But we had better start back if we are to reach the castle by nightfall.”

They turned back and met up with the others, where they ate a hurried picnic. It was then that a
fierce autumn storm silvered the sky and cut through the air with sharp needles of rain. The party tried to continue onward, but they had not gone far before the guards insisted that they could not see their footing and it was too dangerous to go on. Issa could have trusted her neweyr to guide her, but not all the ladies had as much as she did, and there were the men. It seemed rude to leave them behind. So they found a small woods and sheltered there for the night.

Kellin had seemed distracted and moody that evening, as if angry with her for the storm. She kept away from him, but she did not sleep well. In the middle of the night, she woke to a sound outside the makeshift tent the guards had erected for her and Lady Neca.

She stood up and saw a figure in the distance moving furtively away from the campsite. She followed out of curiosity. The storm had blown over, and in a few minutes she recognized Kellin in the moonlight, leading his horse. What was he doing out in the countryside of Weirland without an escort to guide him?

At the edge of the woods, he mounted his horse. Using her neweyr, Issa called for her own horse and was able to keep Kellin in sight while staying far
enough back to avoid his notice. He seemed to have a very good idea of where he was going.

Hours later, near dawn, when they arrived at the shore, Issa could hear the waves slapping against the mossy rocks. Her neweyr senses did not reach out to the water, but she was sure there was a ship there as the moon came out from behind the clouds of the storm.

Kellin hurried toward the group on foot, his horse trailing after him. Three adults were helping along several children. Kellin spoke to them and seemed to be giving directions.

Ekhono refugees, Issa thought. Kellin must have promised he would come to help them. Issa turned back to the woods on her horse and crawled back into her tent before the guards awoke.

When she emerged from her tent in the morning, Kellin was there. “Did you have a good sleep, Your Highness?” he asked.

“Yes, and you?” she asked.

“Like a baby,” he said.

Did he know that she had followed him? She did not think he did, but she did not know what to make of the man. Knowing he had an ekhono brother was one thing, but he continued to help the ekhono even while he was in King Haikor’s court and surely in
terrible danger if the least hint of his true motives was discovered.

The company made their way back to the castle, and Issa did not say a word to anyone about what she had seen.

T
HREE DAYS AFTER
the countryside visit with Kellin, Issa went to her father’s library. She had always found books to be the best way of seeing the world anew, and she needed clarity now more than ever. Her life would change dramatically soon, but she would still have to remember who she was and to whom she owed her duty. She stared at the rows of books in the circular shelves all around her, as high as she could see, up to the stained-glass ceiling overhead that bathed the room in a blue-and-green tinged light. Her parents had designed this library, and it was one place that had nothing to
do with neweyr or taweyr; it was about knowledge that could be written down and shared with anyone, weyred or unweyr.

But the library was not as comforting as she had hoped, and she was just leaving to go back to her own rooms when she saw Kellin.

“Princess Marlissa,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

“And why is that? Have you come to shout at me again? To tell me how fortunate I am and how easy my life is?”

“It is easy, compared to many others. You have privilege and wealth many others can only imagine.” He nodded at the books.

“You think I know nothing of hurt and darkness and sorrow?” said Issa, wishing again she did not argue with him every time she met him.

“You have lived your whole life protected by your father, by your servants, by people who love you,” said Kellin. “You are a princess who will spend her days with nothing more on her mind than what jewels and gowns will suit her best. Your greatest fear will be boredom, or perhaps an occasional cruel word.”

Issa gaped at him. “That is truly what you think of me?”

“And why should I not?” said Kellin.

“My life is not an easy one,” she said.

“No?”

“Do you think you are the only one who has faced loss? My mother died when I was only eleven years old, when I was just coming into my neweyr. The whole kingdom was looking at me to take her place, and I had no one to guide me. I was a child, a little girl who wanted to weep for her mother.

“Instead, I had to be a grown woman, with all the burdens and none of the friendships. When other girls were using their neweyr for fun, to connect with one another, I had to use it for the kingdom. Every breath I take, every moment of every day, even my dreams at night, they are for my kingdom.”

“And you think that is pain?” said Kellin. “Shall I tell you about when I discovered that Kedor was ekhono?”

“Yes,” said Issa. She could not believe his life was so much worse than her own.

“My father told me that it was up to me what to do. I could choose to reveal the truth and get the reward when Kedor was publically burned. It would be good for the estate to have the king’s favor. Or I could choose to take my brother to Weirland. We had to make the journey on our own, however. My father
would allow me to take nothing from the estate, in case we were captured.

“When I returned home, my father simply handed me a list of tasks. He never spoke of my brother again. It was only about using my taweyr, always using my taweyr, and making sure it was seen clearly by all around.”

“Kellin, I am so sorry,” said Issa, putting a hand out to touch him. All her anger had melted away.

But he jerked away from her. “That is not what I came here to say,” he said.

Issa was confused. Did he despise her? Why would he tell her something so personal if he thought so badly of her? “Then what did you come to say?” she asked.

“I came to speak to you about Prince Edik,” he said.

Issa stiffened. That was the last name she had wanted to hear at this moment. Perhaps she was being childish, but she wanted to put off thinking of her dutiful future for just a little while longer.

“He must have a chance,” said Kellin.

“Edik?”

Kellin nodded. “To be other than his father is. To be better. I think you may be his chance.”

“When I am married to him,” murmured Issa.

“You must give him no reason to be jealous,” said Kellin. “If he suspects for a moment that you—feel anything for another—he will tell his father.”

“Ah,” said Issa. She stared into Kellin’s eyes, but he would not look back at her.

“King Haikor needs only an excuse for war. And perhaps not even that,” said Kellin.

“You think he would win, then?” Issa asked. She realized she would rather talk to him about this than have him leave her.

“Your kingdom does not have the strength to withstand him. Your focus has been on the neweyr here. In Rurik, it is the opposite: the neweyr has been sacrificed for the taweyr. And the more time passes, the more urgent it becomes for the kingdom of Rurik to be bolstered in neweyr.”

“You mean when Edik is king and I am queen,” said Issa.

There was a long pause. “Edik will need you,” said Kellin, his voice strained. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

Issa nodded. She understood perfectly. Edik needed her and Kellin did not. When she went to Rurik, she must not allow herself to think of Kellin as anything other than a servant of King Haikor, whatever she
felt for him. And certainly she could not imagine that he felt anything for her.

“Good. Because all that I do is for my kingdom, for the thing that is greater than I am and will stand long after I am gone.”

Of course. Even his helping the ekhono, Issa thought. He did it for his kingdom. He knew the risks and he did not care about them.

“When you come to Rurik for the betrothal, you cannot sit back and think that the court in Rurik will be like this one. You cannot be sure that the best of intentions will rule.”

Perhaps he was trying to be kind, to offer her advice, but to Issa it felt only like criticism and it stung. “So you know what it is that I must become? You would shape the queen I shall be?” said Issa.

“I see the beginnings of strength in you. But you must become harder and more suspicious. You must see conspiracies before they come at you. You must hold the throne.”

“You want me to be like Haikor? Is that not what he has done?”

“Yes, he has.”

“With strength and steel?” said Issa. “With blood and death?”

“That is not what I mean,” said Kellin.

“No? But I should be flattered, I suppose, that you think so well of me. That you think I am worthy to be queen of your Edik.”

“I was trying to help,” said Kellin.

Was he?

Kellin bowed his head. “I must go.”

Coward, thought Issa as she watched him leave the library. But she knew that the word applied equally well to herself.