21 #2
The strain in my voice catches his attention, and he turns. His silver eyes are breathtaking, framed by the black paint and the dark furs, with the pale gray sky behind him.
“Of course, lovely,” he reassures me. “We’ll go back to the carpets.”
As we trudge back to the road, I pull down my collar again and say sharply, “Why did you have me bring you to this kingdom? It’s just as dangerous as Belavrin.”
“In a different way, maybe,” he admits. “But I prefer the risk of a sinkhole to the threat of assassins.”
“I don’t.”
“We’ll be fine. Up you go, darling.” He offers his hand with a courtly flourish, and I allow him to help me onto the carpet.
“I love it when you let me treat you like a lady,” he murmurs, settling in at my side.
“Yet you seem to prefer my most unladylike behaviors,” I retort.
His eyes crinkle at the corners, but the humor quickly fades into something like regret. “We shouldn’t talk like that anymore among these people. I’m here for treaty negotiations, and I can’t be seen flirting with my bodyguard.”
“Of course.” I keep my voice light, as if his words don’t feel like a battering ram to my chest. “I’ve never enjoyed your flirting, anyway. It will be a relief not to endure it.”
A hint of pain sparks in his eyes, but he only nods and looks away.
Within minutes, we’re off again, gliding over the frigid landscape, through villages of clay huts with domed roofs.
Ominous cracks branch through streets and walls, and some of the hamlets have spilled into sinkholes.
It’s heartbreaking to see homes and belongings tilted and tumbled into the maw of the earth.
The few people we see are walking bundles of fur, moving carefully across the surface of their crumbling world.
“How do they live like this?” I ask. “I couldn’t handle it.”
“They have nowhere else to go,” Vawn replies.
“Their own government keeps them from leaving the kingdom, and those who do manage to get past the Tularesk border wall are stopped by my father’s guards.
Tularesk merchants are allowed into Belavrin, but families transporting their belongings are stopped and sent back. ”
“That’s heartless.”
“I suppose it is,” he muses. “I feel the cruelty of it now. I couldn’t before.”
“Because of your other glyph set.”
“Yes.”
“Have you been to Tularesk previously? You seem very knowledgeable about it.”
“I came here for a few days as a child, with Lord and Lady Kaenan and my siblings,” he replies. “I haven’t been here for years. But with all the talk of a new treaty, my brother made me study the history and culture of this place.”
“Were you closely involved with the treaty negotiations? I thought you didn’t get involved in politics.”
“In this case, I didn’t have a choice.”
We both fall abruptly silent as our carpet convoy sails past an immense sinkhole.
Judging by the debris around its edges, I would guess that the hole swallowed a large settlement.
The Tularesk soldiers with us, swathed as they are in furs, betray no emotion, but I know they must be devastated by the sight.
Or perhaps these catastrophes have become so commonplace that they are numb to the loss.
A little past noon, the domes and peaks of the Celestial Seat decorate the horizon. The land is so flat that the capital city appears closer than it is, so I’m surprised when it takes us another two hours to reach it.
As we draw nearer to the capital, the carpets have to navigate around some pedestrians and a few covered carts. The people on foot walk swiftly and lightly, sometimes going off the road to avoid a sunken area or a crack. The carts follow the same pattern, avoiding ground that appears more fragile.
We’re not far from the gates when one of our escorts lets out an alarmed cry and points off to the right. A man is driving a herd of fat, shaggy cows across the fields toward the city.
“He should not have so many of them running together!” shouts the soldier. “Two or three at most! Helik, Marsta, go and warn him. Fucking idiot!”
Two of the soldiers guide their carpets off the road and streak toward the herdsmen and his cows.
But before they reach him, a shelf of earth folds down into the ground, tipping the herd into a dark hole.
Even after the panicked animals have disappeared, the edges of the ground continue to break off and fall into the vast tunnel below.
Vawn grabs the lead rope of our carpet and tugs it upward. As we gain altitude, he points, wordless, and I gasp against the collar of my coat.
Something huge, dark, and furry moves in the hole, disturbed by the collapse. It heads deeper into its tunnel, trying to get away from the light and the noise of the injured animals. Within seconds, it’s gone.
This sinkhole is shallower than some of the ones we’ve seen, but it’s still maybe two stories deep. Most of the cows seem to be mortally injured, and their herdsman is nowhere to be seen.
The carpet we’re riding sinks slowly, unable to maintain the altitude Vawn coaxed out of it. The two soldiers who tried to warn the herdsman return to our group.
“Too late,” one of them says.
“Shit,” mutters the man who first spotted the herd. “We’ll send someone for the animals. We need the meat.”
“I guarantee you someone on the wall has already seen what happened,” replies the other soldier. “Soon there will be citizens swarming this area. They’ll make the hole worse, and some of them will probably die trying to get a chunk of the meat.”
“Let them,” says the first man bitterly. “Fewer mouths to feed.”
I don’t say a word, because it isn’t my place to comment on the catastrophe ravaging this nation. Vawn doesn’t speak either, but I know he is storing up information for use in his negotiations with the Twin Lieges.
Normally, as a visiting king, he would have a retinue with him—other dignitaries and nobles to assist him with crafting such an important agreement.
As it is, he’ll have to do this alone. I’m not trained in political negotiations, nor am I familiar with all the economic and social factors that would be involved with moving the survivors of a dying country into our kingdom. But I can imagine the complications.
I don’t envy Vawn the challenge, and truth be told, I’m not sure he’s up to the task.
He’s smarter than I gave him credit for when I first met him.
When he’s not tempering his emotions to combat his darkness, he can be compassionate.
But designing this treaty requires more than intelligence and compassion; it also demands knowledge and experience.
I’m not sure he has enough of either. And yet, neither Vawn nor the Tularesk rulers have a choice.
Both sides need this treaty desperately.
I shake myself out of the contemplation, trying to stay alert like a bodyguard should as we enter the capital city. Even though I caught a few hours of sleep last night, it wasn’t enough. I’m tired, and the skin along my side twinges painfully.
I’m no grizzled, weathered guard with a frame toughened by years of experience.
Much as I want to deny it, I’m too new for this, too young and soft.
I want a comfortable bed and a hot meal and a glass of wine.
I want my body to stop hurting for just a few minutes.
And then there’s the constant, gnawing worry underlying every breath I take—the fear that something bad will happen to Vawn. I would love some relief from that.
The prince reaches over and places his furry glove on top of mine. I glance at him, shocked, my weary brain momentarily convinced that he read my thoughts.
“Thank you for getting me here.” He nods toward the palace up ahead.
The palace of the Twin Lieges is built on a jutting slab of gray rock—a comforting sight after the sinkholes we’ve seen. It should be a safe place to rest, thanks to its solid foundation. Bells chime from thin, pointed towers as we approach.
Vawn takes a flask from a pocket within his furs and sips from it. He’s been partaking of its contents regularly for the past hour.
“Liquid courage?” I ask.
He voices a reckless chuckle. “If I’m forbidden to use my podalic glyphs, I have to find some other way of facing what’s ahead.”
“I didn’t forbid you—I gave you a suggestion. When it comes to the health of your mind, I might make recommendations, but I would never command you to do one thing or another. I haven’t experienced what you endure. I don’t live inside your head.”
“Thank the fates,” he mutters, sipping from his flask again.
“Take it slow, please,” I beg him. “You need to be keen and wise for this negotiation.”
“Oh, the bargaining won’t happen today. There will be some sort of dinner or feast tonight, and then we’ll hit the negotiations tomorrow. I’m fortifying myself against the Twins. I haven’t visited this city before, but I’ve met them twice. They are… well… you’ll see.”
Our carpet sails through the tall double doors of the palace into a room lined with pillars and paved with blue marble.
The room might have been huge once, but there’s barely enough space for three magic carpets because piles of items fill the space, reaching about two-thirds of the way up the pillars.
I’m not sure what all of the objects are, but I glimpse brass-banded trunks, barrels, bolts of cloth, packages wrapped in soiled brown paper, small bits of statuary, wooden carvings, broken chairs, painted dressers, and embroidered pillows.
There are clocks and quilts, candelabra and ceramic bowls, crumpled brocade curtains and tarnished silver.
As we dismount from our carpet, servants hurry forward to take Severin’s case and our satchels. The servants are all clad in the same livery—long robes of pale blue, overlaid with thin vestments embroidered in snowy swirls of gray and white.
“As the prince’s bodyguard, I need a room next to his. Preferably adjoining his suite,” I tell them.
“It shall be done, ma’am,” says one of the servants with a respectful bow.