30
G
oing single file on the narrow path, I reached for Ash and he took my hand, reminding me of our journey up Odfell's Pass. It felt so good to touch him again, his large, coarse hand enfolding mine. He hadn't questioned my need to see the body of the child entombed with Hugh. He might not have wanted what we had together, but he believed in me. And he'd left paradise to come for me.
In many ways, that meant more.
We made our way into the tombs, the alkaline stone silent and shadowed, dried rose petals in drifts in the corners. The sounds of surf and the wind whispered around the corners, playing ghost with each other, invisible fingers stirring the petal drifts with dry rustles. But that's all the haunting there was. Hugh lingered here no more than where he died on the pass.
His bricked-in arch stood out, with the fresh mortar evident, though it had been smoothed away.
“How did you do this by yourself?” I asked Ursula, who lurked unhappily by the exit to the cliffs, as if she might flee at any moment.
“I didn't.” She sounded almost angry. “Dafne swore one of the brick masons to secrecy and the two of us said Glorianna's prayers over the babe.”
Ash seemed to read my thoughts. “I can do it,” he said, “though you'll need your mason to seal it again.” Pulling a work knife from his weapons belt, which Ursula had grudgingly dug out of a locker, but only when I insisted, he chipped away at the fresh mortar with that uncanny strength and speed.
“This is wrong,” Ursula said, her voice strained.
I glanced at her and away again. “I didn't think you were superstitious.”
“I don't have to be superstitious to know to leave the dead well enough alone.”
A tendril of wind toyed with the dried rose petals, spinning them in a spiral. “I have to see. You don't have to stay, if you'll respect what I decide after this.”
She didn't say anything for a while. Finally, with a heavy sigh, Ursula unstrapped her sword, set it down within reach, and helped with her own digging tool. Working together, they pulled out the bricks, handing them to me. I made a neat pile, trying not to think too hard about it all.
Just make it to the next step.
“That's enough,” I said, when they had an opening big enough for me to climb in. Ash cast me a look, then nodded. Taking a torch from the wall, he lit it with a flint from his belt, handed it to Ursula, and climbed in. She passed it back, then laced her hands in a basket, to boost me over, as she'd helped me onto my first pony, when I was little.
With my sister lifting me, and Ash supporting me over, I climbed into my dead husband's tomb, as I had dreamed of doing, all those awful lonely nights.
Ash watched me intently, then cupped my cheek. “Okay?”
“Yes.” I turned my head and kissed his palm. He stepped aside.
Hugh's body had shrunk under the funeral robes, the dry scent of embalming spices filling the air. Tucked in the fold of his arm lay a pitifully small bundle, wrapped in a pink blanket. One of the ones I'd managed to finish knitting.
I laid my hand on it, not sure what I expected to feel.
With tenderness, I gathered up the blanket and set it on the robe covering Hugh's chest. Then began to unpeel the wrappings.
“Amiâ” Ursula started, and choked off. She'd climbed over the wall but stood as far back as possible. “Please don't do this.”
I smiled at her, to give comfort, and tasted the salt of tears on my lips. They flowed so effortlessly now, like the rise and fall of the tides. Like the love and life that surged through my heart. Not shredded. Alive and whole. I let them. “It's okay. The pain isn't here. Their bodies are shells. They have no power over us.”
She regarded me with bewilderment, so I returned my attention to the blanket, so lovingly and carefully wrapped around the creature they thought had been my dead child.
I reached the inmost layer. Ursula made a stifled sound and I hesitated. Ash laid his hand on my back, steadying me. “Okay,” he said, reminding me.
Resolved, I tore open the cloth, my eyes closed against what I would see.
Both of them were silent. Then Ash let out a long breath.
I looked.
On the inner cloth, inside the carefully folded blanket, lay a bundle of twigs and leaves.
Look for the trick.
Nothing more.
I breathed again.
“What is this?” Ursula's demand lacked all vigor. Like Graves, for all that she'd fought the Tala, she still believed in flesh and blood, life and death, not the shining and shadowy regions that tied them together.
“Magic,” Ash answered for me, rubbing my back. “Tala magic.”
“The Tala took my daughter,” I breathed, testing the words. “This is what Andi knew.”
“Some of it,” Ash qualified. “And only a certain . . . dissatisfied contingent. Even in paradise, there are those who must play politics.”
“You're saying the child we found dead was some kind of . . . fake?” Ursula wedged herself in on the other side of the bier and poked a finger at the pile of twigs and leaves, like a cat testing a mouse to see if it might run.
“Yes. Someone with Tala magic took the young princess and left thisâchangelingâin its place.”
“Someone with Tala magic, inside Windroven.” Her face hardened with suspicion.
“Like me, yes. But I don't have these skills.”
“So you say. But there are no other Tala in Windroven.”
He laughedâone with full sound for once. “If you believe that, Your Highness, you're a fool. The Tala are all among you.”
She hated that thought. It stood stark on her face and burned the air. “Not much magic, if it lasted such a short time.”
Ash lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “The culpritâhe or sheâwould have known that the people of Avonlidgh bury their dead immediately. The spell didn't need to last longer than that.”
“Just long enough for me to bury her,” I added, sifting through the leaves with my fingers. “While he took her away, thinking we'd never look.”
“Marin!” Ursula's scowl deepened as she found a target for her anger. “She stole the Princess.”
But I was already shaking my head at her. I knew of one trickster. The one who'd recognized me when no one else had. As if he'd known where to find me. Who'd been inside Windroven, biding his time. “Not Marin. Wyle.”
They gazed at me with identical expressions of bewilderment. I sighed with impatience. “Ashâyou wouldn't know him, but Ursula, he's that minstrel, with the short, very dark hair and very light blue eyes, almost silvery with it.”
She shook her head, frowning as she searched her mind, but Ashâhe gripped my shoulder, turning me toward him, and I could sense his growing tension. “Describe this minstrel,” he demanded.
I did, telling them both how he'd happened upon our party at the inn, singing me that song. “It wasn't about me, was itâthat song? It was about my daughter.” Automatically, I put my hand over my empty belly.
Gone is the maiden of roses. Swallowed up into the sea.
“He took her.”
Ash was shaking his head. “I do know that man. Terin. King Rayfe suspected him of leading this secret resistance group within Annfwn. He disappeared right as I arrived. Now we understand why.”
“And exactly what are they resisting?” Ursula rubbed her thumb over the cabochon jewel in her sword hilt, voice neutral, but eyes glittering like a naked blade. They kept returning to the blanket, as if she checked the contents against the mental image she remembered. She and Graves truly were two of a kind that way.
“This doesn't seem the place to be having such a discussion,” Ash evaded.
Ursula, for all that she hadn't liked it before, disagreed. “This is an ideal spot. No one will overhear us. Let's hash this out.”
“I agree.” I folded up the blanket. “Hugh is beyond caring, and I want to find out what I need to know to get my daughter back.”
Resigned, Ash nodded. “I knew what I'd face by coming here on my own.”
“You seem to be quite cozy with Andi and Rayfe, all of a sudden,” Ursula noted. “Especially as I understand you only first crossed into Annfwn some months ago.”
He nodded wryly. “It's true. The manner of my entry, in Ami's company, gave Queen Andromeda reason to be interested in me. She has also been pursuing a . . . project, of sorts, with King Rayfe's approval, to find ways to locate and repatriate the part-blood Tala currently locked out of Annfwn. Thus I've been useful to her.”
“That sounds so like Andi,” Ursula murmured. “Every damn baby bird in Mohraya ended up in her bedchambers.”
“The Tala have an affinity for animals,” Ash replied. “And it makes her a fine queen.”
I didn't need to hear the admiration in his voice to understand how totally Andi had won his loyalty. As much as part of me ached like an old bruise over it, my heart held enough love that it didn't pain me so much. “So. This Terin is leading a group that wants to remove Andi from the Tala throne, because she's not fully Tala, is my guess,” I said.
“It's more complicated that than, but that captures the essence of the situation, yes.”
“Will he take my daughter to Annfwn?”
Ash hesitated. “I'm not sure. It's not clear what their agenda is.”
“But you can track him?”
“I will, yes.”
“Then I'll go with you.”
“You will not!” Ash and Ursula spoke as one, their voices identically emphatic. It made me laugh, their absolute synchronicity. It felt as good to laugh as it had to cry, as if everything inside me was coming to life again. A late spring and a welcome one. How I loved them both.
Ursula glared Ash into silence, reminding him of her rank, then turned on me. “Ami, you are, if not shortly Queen of Avonlidgh, then at least Duchess of Windroven and always the daughter of the High Kingâyou have responsibilities here. Think of your son, too!”
“I am thinking of my son. I'll bring him with me.”
That astonished them both so much that neither could do more than blink at me. I laughed, again, the absurdity of it all hitting me hard. “Glorianna! Look at the pair of you. He's a baby, not a hothouse roseâhe won't wither up and die if I take him out of Windroven. And, amazingly, this is the perfect solution to my dilemmaâand yours, Ursula.”
“What are you talking about, Ami?” Ursula sounded weary. The circles under her eyes had deepened, if possible.
“I don't want either Uorsin or Erich taking possession of my son. Nor you, Ursula. That's not a choice I'd have you face. My other option is to hold them off with another siege, and while the two armies might destroy each other for me, they'll take the crops and livestock with them. Windroven, AvonlidghâGlorianna, all the Twelveâcan't afford to lose this summer's yields.”
Ash remained silent, while Ursula mentally parsed my points. “What's your plan, then?” she finally asked.
Taken aback that I didn't have to debate her further, I had to realign my thoughts. “How far away are Erich and Uorsin's troops?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Two days, three at the most.”
“Tomorrow we pledge my son to the goddesses and name him. We'll spread the word for the celebration today. Morning ceremony for Glorianna, noon for Danu, nightfall for Moranu.”
“All three? Are you sure you don't want to add in the frost gods they say the people of the Northern Wastes worship?”
I didn't rise to her bait. “All three. The Twelve Kingdoms need balance again. It's the only way for us to thrive.”
“This seems to be a very strange conversation to be having in a tomb,” she remarked.
My eyes fell to Hugh's shrouded corpse, a pang of sorrow coiling through me. It felt mellower, not the agony of those early days, nor the chronic, slow bleed of the months after. Like my mother, he, too, would always go with me.
“Not so strange,” I reflected. “Hugh should not have died. Had things been in balance, it would never have happened. It was a tragic error.”
Ursula looked profoundly stricken, as if an arrow had hit her between the shoulder blades and plunged through her heart. I could no longer scent her emotionsâor Ash'sâthe way I had, but I didn't need to. The guilt and regret crawled over her face.
“Andi didn't kill him. She could never have bested a fighter like Hugh. I can think of one person who could,” I said softly. Ash's hand settled on the small of my back and I leaned into the solid strength he offered.
Ursula's gaze dragged to the shroud, horror contorting her mouth. “I did it. I killed him.” She spoke to him. Giving him the bald confession.
“Tell me what happened.” I'd said those words to her over his body before, the day she arrived at Windroven the first time. She'd chosen her phrasing carefully then. She and Andi both, conspiring to mislead me.
Her thumb rubbed over the much-smoothed jewel in her sword, drawing comfort from her talisman. “It happened so fast. Tensions were high. Hugh went for Rayfe and Andi put herself between them. So fast. He wouldn't have been able to not strike her. I acted before I even knew. I cut him down. It was me.”
I closed my eyes, imagining the scene. Hugh would have done exactly that. And, if Andi truly loved Rayfe, as it seemed she did, she would have done exactly that, too. I would have, for Hughâand I would for AshâI knew it in that heartbeat of understanding.
And Ursulaâalways she had protected us. I'd always seen Andi as my replacement mother, but if that was so, Ursula was the father Uorsin could never be. She would die before she let anyone hurt either of us. Without a moment's thought.