Coralinda transferred her gaze to Amalie. Kirra had a strange moment of blurred vision when it seemed her eyes could not take in both of them at once, the dark, malevolent Lestra and the red-gold princess, hair and dress softly gleaming in the unreliable candlelight. Beside her, she heard Cammon take a deep breath. Senneth’s face showed a moment of confusion. Then Amalie moved and the illusion was broken and everyone looked ordinary, if a little grim.
“I am charmed to meet the princess,” Coralinda said. Her voice was surprisingly beautiful; she must be hypnotic when she told a story or explained a metaphor. “You are quite beautiful.”
“And you are most impressive,” Amalie replied in her demure way. “I am glad to finally get a chance to see you face-to-face.”
“But I cannot stand here and merely mouth platitudes,” Coralinda said, and everyone standing nearby stiffened with outrage. She leaned forward but did not get so close to Amalie that the Riders put their hands on their swords. “You are in danger, princess. Take care.”
Romar made a sudden movement, as if to throw himself forward and shield Amalie with his body, but Senneth flung out a hand to hold him in place.
Amalie did not seem alarmed. “What danger? Where? Only show me and I will prepare,” she asked in her soft voice. Kirra thought suddenly,
Have I been underestimating her all along because she speaks so quietly? Listen to what she says! And how she says it!
Coralinda’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, intense and persuasive. “You are surrounded on all sides by mystics, majesty. They are not to be trusted. They will harm you deliberately if they can—and even if they leave you whole, they will destroy you. They will leach away your soul. They will poison your heart. They will turn your sweet blood to black tar as it moves through your veins.”
Amalie did not look dismayed in the slightest. “I wonder why it is you have such fear of mystics, serra,” she said politely. “Have they ever harmed you in any way?”
Coralinda flinched back. “Harmed me! No. I am impervious to magic. But they have great influence with the weak and the simple-minded.”
“And you think I am weak and simple-minded?”
Absolute silence at that. No one could quite believe Amalie had said it. Senneth’s face did not change by so much as a muscle, but Kirra could almost hear her laughing. Very slowly, very carefully, Romar turned his head to give his niece a speculative appraisal.
“I do not know,” Coralinda replied somberly. “But you are practically a child still. You are easily swayed by the people around you who appear to love you and mean you well. Trust me when I say these folks are a chancre in your heart, and they will eat you from the inside.”
“What reason do I have to believe
you
mean me well, Coralinda?” Amalie said, and she appeared to be genuinely asking for information.
“I serve the goddess, who offers only light,” the Lestra immediately replied. “She can guide you to the true path.”
“You mean you can guide me.”
“I do.”
“I don’t trust you,” Amalie said.
There was another profound silence.
“And I don’t, in fact, believe you mean me well,” the princess continued in a conversational voice. It was as if Coralinda had proposed that she wear a blue gown to her next ball and Amalie was deciding against it for rather trivial reasons. “You are very ambitious and you are very interested in power. I cannot trust ambitious people when they are trying to claw their way closer to the throne.”
“And this lot, these adventurers and schemers you have surrounded yourself with?” Coralinda shot back. “You think they are not ambitious as well? You think they have not allied themselves to you because they are interested in power?”
Amalie actually laughed. The rest of them were frozen. “Valri is so little interested in the crown that she would disappear from the ballroom right now if she felt free to do so,” Amalie said. “Casserah would rather be in Danalustrous than anywhere else you could name, including Ghosenhall. And even you must realize that the only thing Senneth would do with temporal power is throw it away. These are not people who would steal my throne from me. They don’t want it.”
“And Romar Brendyn of Merrenstow?” Coralinda asked in a very low voice. “The regent is not interested in the throne?”
Kirra felt herself grow cold all over.
Could Coralinda Gisseltess be behind the attacks on Romar? Could that be why they had seemed so random, so disorganized, so unlike Halchon’s usual cruel efficiency? Because they had been carried out not by his ruthless and well-trained troops but by scattered individuals loyal to the Lestra and acting on her ill-defined charge?
Rid me of this regent, any way you choose.
It was certainly possible.
Romar answered the accusation. “No, serra,” he said. “I would not take the throne from my sister’s child. In fact, I would give my life to see that she attains it.”
“If she attains it with the aid of mystics and charlatans, she will not sit there long,” Coralinda prophesied.
“And would you be the one to try to dislodge her?” Senneth asked coolly.
Coralinda gave her a look of such hatred that even Senneth looked surprised. “I would use every means in my power to make sure she held the throne without people like you at her side.”
Senneth nodded. “So you threaten me, not Amalie. You think that sounds less like treason.”
“I do not speak treason at all. I carry the goddess’s word through Gillengaria. And the goddess abhors mystics. And mystics will all be dispersed or destroyed. And anyone who clings to mystics is likely to find her own world destroyed as well.”
“I wonder what you are so afraid of,” Amalie said.
Coralinda gave her a look of frigid fury for that. “I am afraid of nothing! Except seeing the kingdom fall into the hands of soulless men and women. Majesty, they surround you, but I can free you from their coils. Come to me at Lumanen. You will be safe there.”
And she reached out to clutch Amalie’s arm.
For a moment, Kirra’s vision wavered again. Shadows seemed to swoop in from all sides, and her whole body grew cold. Either she closed her eyes for a moment or someone moved too quickly for her to follow, for when she could focus again, Coralinda had been shoved two paces back from Amalie—and Valri was standing with her body between the women.
Valri. Not Senneth or Tayse. And her perfectly white, perfectly shaped face was strained with rage.
“Never touch her,” the queen spat out. “
Never
lay your hand on the princess again.”
“You’re a fool,” Coralinda said in an icy voice. “I want to save her, not harm her.”
“I am safe where I am,” Amalie said, completely unruffled. “But I think you antagonize my friends. If we are to talk again, it must be some other place and time.”
Thus with utter composure dismissing such a dangerous and angry foe! Kirra briefly lifted her gaze from Amalie’s face to meet Senneth’s eyes. “Perhaps someone can escort the Lestra back to the marlord,” Kirra suggested.
“Cammon,” Senneth snapped, and the boy stepped forward.
Coralinda made a deep, slow curtsey and surfaced, looking straight at Amalie. “Remember what I told you,” she said. “Come to me at any time.”
Amalie inclined her head. “Thank you for the offer.”
And she watched—they all watched—in silence as Cammon offered Coralinda his arm and accompanied her back across the ballroom.
“That’s the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met in my life,” Senneth said at last, breaking the silence that held them all speechless. “I can’t figure out what makes her so frightening—I can’t see how she can hurt any of us. Here. Now. And yet just seeing her makes my body tense for battle.”
Valri had moved a step away from Amalie. Kirra still couldn’t understand how she had moved so fast. “I told you. She’s evil,” the queen said.
Senneth nodded. “Oh, yes. And the more so because she believes she’s good.”
“If it makes you feel any better, she’s afraid of you, too,” Amalie said in her soft voice.
Senneth turned to look at her. They all did. “What I don’t understand is why
you
aren’t afraid of her,” Senneth said slowly. “Or were you just pretending?”
Amalie looked surprised. “Why would I be afraid? What can she do to me? Especially with all of you standing right here?”
Senneth still watched her, puzzlement on her face. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“Speaking in more practical terms,” Kirra said, “did anyone think she was threatening Lord Romar? She all but came out and accused him of coveting the throne.”
“I don’t think she’s very interested in me,” Romar said. “It’s the rest of you she wants to see disposed of.”
“I’m not sure she’s too particular,” Tayse said. “I think she’d like to chip away at the entire circle protecting the princess. I think she’d like to see the princess completely vulnerable and friendless—with only herself as an ally.”
“That plan seems destined to fail,” Romar remarked.
A small smile from Senneth. “Indeed. She does not seem to realize how deep both our devotion and our resources run.”
“Two swords and a woman who manufactures fire,” Valri said in a contemptuous voice. “Forgive me if I don’t think those resources so vast.”
To everyone’s surprise, Amalie laughed. “Oh, Valri. If any harm had threatened me, Justin and Tayse and Senneth would have beaten it back, while Donnal changed himself into a bear or a great hunting bird and carried me off to safety.”
The words gave Kirra a peculiar start. She had not realized that Amalie felt so comfortable around Donnal that she would trust her person to him in whatever guise he took. Tayse himself put his hand to his left shoulder, bowing, and Justin followed suit.
“Yes, majesty, I believe we can protect her from the foes she might find here,” Tayse said in a serious voice. “She has many enemies, and they are not all in this room. But we will not fail her father, and we will not fail her.”
CHAPTER
22
T
HEY left Coravann in the morning, though Kirra insisted she could not leave without confronting their host. She was more subtle about it when she actually tracked him down in his den, arguing with his steward. He dismissed the other man and greeted her with his usual lumbering charm.
“Sit, sit,” he invited, sinking to a plush leather couch and waving her to a chair. “What did you think of the ball last night, eh? Quite a turnout, I thought.”
“Even your in-laws from the Lirrenlands were there,” Kirra said. “Though not particularly friendly.”
He snorted. “That
was
friendly, for them.”
“Even the Lestra from the Lumanen Convent.”
“An amazing woman,” he said earnestly.
Kirra toyed with her ruby pendant, this morning worn over a high-necked traveling gown. “You realize she has set herself against the king,” she said in a soft voice.
Heffel looked astonished. “Coralinda! No. She has no interest in politics—though her brother, now, he’s a different story. Coralinda cares only for serving the Pale Mother.”
“Not entirely true,” Kirra said.
He blustered a bit and she waited him out till he finally looked at her with a frown on his face. “Why are you bringing this up? What are you worried about?” he asked.
“Coralinda despises mystics and is on a campaign to abolish them. The king welcomes mystics and has invited many into the highest circles of his court. The question is: How do
you
feel about mystics? Which side would you choose, if sides were to be chosen?”
“I am so tired of talk about a stupid war!” he exploded. “Who will fight whom—who sides with what House. Let it be! There should be no war! Let us all live in peace—mystic, marlord, Lestra, Lirrenfolk, and ordinary men!”
“Fine in theory,” Kirra said. “But if war comes, who will you support?”