Aurora (18 page)

‘The Pontifix wants to see you right away,’ says Broom.

Candle lets out a wail. ‘He treats me like a slave, sending me away, fetching me . . .’

‘Something’s happened to upset him. Be careful,’ Broom warns, as she pushes her out of the door.

Candle stomps through the palace after the guard. All day long she has waited to talk to Broom, who has been busy in the palace kitchen. Endless empty hours alone in her room have passed with only meals to punctuate the wretched boredom that is now Candle’s life. And now, just as Broom arrives and Candle is itching to find out what Broom meant earlier about escaping, bursting to tell her that Tuck knows about Mara, she must run to her strange, cold husband.

Her father’s constant seafaring gave Candle precious freedom when he was away; she cannot bear this shut-in life. She
will
escape.

But she must hide her feelings and calm herself now, as she enters his room.

Tuck stands by the wide slab of rock he uses as a desk.

‘Bad news,’ he says gruffly, before she even has a chance to sit down. ‘It’s your father.’

Candle stares at her husband, wondering what her father has done. It might be anything. His temper is as unpredictable as the moods of the sea goddess herself.

‘Rodenglaw’s boat didn’t return to Ilira,’ says Tuck.

He pauses and Candle hears the wind moan around the palace.

She shrugs, puzzled. Her father is always off somewhere or other – but where would he go in a wedding gondola?

Tuck hesitates. ‘He is drowned,’ he says, quick and tense.

Candle hears the words but they seem to bounce off her senselessly. She turns her head and looks through the layers of glass to the oceanic darkness outside.

‘But – but the sea was calm.’

What is Tuck saying? He must be mistaken. How could a seafarer like her father, who has sailed on the ocean since he was a boy and knows the waters around Ilira better than his own face, drown in a calm fjord?

‘The gondola hit wreckage, I’m told.’ Tuck’s glance flickers.

‘A sea trap?’ Candle bursts out before she can stop herself. The Pontifix’s traps are meant to sink intruders and it was his own gondolier who took her father back down the fjord, so how could that be? The gondoliers know where the traps lie.

Tuck frowns and mutters something about rival Sea Lords.

‘Another Sea Lord had him drowned?’ Candle thinks of all the rivals her father has fought and feuded with over the years.

‘The palace lookout found the wreckage of the boat on our shore,’ says Tuck, ignoring her question. ‘My guards have searched the waters and shores of the fjord. I’ll have them search again.’

The reality of her father’s death is sinking in. Candle begins to tremble with shock. What could have hapened? Was it an accident? Or was it by another’s hand? Did some rival have him drowned?

I didn’t hate him
, she realizes.
I didn’t want him dead. I only wanted him to love me and be kind.

She remembers his final, unexpected wave and a sadness wells up in her that is beyond tears. Now she is all alone in the world, at the mercy of this strange man.

The steamy gurgle of the geyser in the alcove sounds like a drowning man Candle covers her ears with her hands.

‘I want to go my room,’ she pleads.

‘This is your home,’ says Tuck, his voice suddenly gentle and lilting as a calm sea. ‘You are free to do as you please. The guards and slaves are here to look after you.’

Free?
thinks Candle, bitterly.

He moves towards her but she has already turned away so an awkward kiss lands cold upon her ear.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But he was a cruel father,’ he adds unexpectedly. ‘I could tell.’

It’s a relief to escape. In the corridor Candle waves the guard away, wanting to be alone. Only the hiss and gurgle of the geysers break the stillness of the palace. The ocean booms on the rocks outside. Last night, it was full of dark whispers, a hushed sea. Not a sea to drown in.

A sudden thought filters through Candle’s shock.

What if it wasn’t a rival Sea Lord but
Tuck
who made sure her father never made it back to Ilira? With Rodenglaw dead, it’s Tuck who will inherit all his ships and trade and wealth. Did her new husband have her father killed on her wedding day?

INTRUDER AT THE PALACE

Candle stops, lost. Wandering aimlessly, she has come to a dead end in the maze of glass

‘I will!’ a voice hisses.

Candle jumps with fright. The voice came from the ground at her feet. She looks down and sees she has almost hurtled into a dark hole where the rocky floor gives way to a flight of steps. The steps lead to an underground cavern. Deep in the cavern is a brightness. Candle crouches and peers down into the cavern and sees a long table lit by an oil lamp. The glow of the lamp reflects dully on the metal table as the moon does on a fogged sea.

A girl’s face leans close to the lamp, towards two figures who sit with their backs to Candle.

‘You can’t stop me!’ the girl bursts out.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ says a familiar voice. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘Broom!’ Candle cries. She clambers down the rocky steps.

‘Candle! What are you doing here?’ Broom turns around and rushes over. ‘It’s lucky the kitchen workers are all in bed. What would the Pontifix’s people think of you coming down here?’

‘But – my father – Broom, haven’t you heard?’

Broom takes in her stricken face. She leads Candle to the table and sits her down.

‘What’s he done now?’ says one of the others at the table.

Candle’s eyes have blurred with tears so it’s only when she hears the voice that she knows who it is.

‘Clay!’ Candle clings on to him as he grabs her in a hug. ‘You’re here?’

She glances at the young kitchen girl at the table. ‘Send her away, Broom. I must talk.’

‘She’s a friend. She can be trusted,’ Broom assures her. ‘What’s happened, Candle? The guards know something but they wouldn’t tell.’

Candle blurts out the story of Rodenglaw’s drowning and her suspicions about Tuck.

‘You can see why he’d do it,’ Clay agrees. ‘Now he gets everything, doesn’t he? Rodenglaw’s share in the cable trains, his ships, all his wealth and power in Ilira. And control over the new waterfall and sun energy industries. Rodenglaw promised him the plans, Mum.’

‘
My
plans,’ says Broom, ‘and he won’t be getting them now. But to do this so brazenly, on the very day he married Candle . . . ?’

‘A very convenient accident,’ says Clay. ‘But that’s what Tuck Culpy does. His fleets wreck trade boats and ships all the time. Why d’you think there’s so much work for scavengers? Piracy’s what made the Pontifix so powerful. Bridges are just his hobby, Mum. Piracy’s his real work. It’s what keeps other pirates away from Ilira There are old seafarers who swear he was a gypsea pirate before he was the Pontifix.’

Broom and Candle stare at Clay, aghast.

‘Why did you never tell me all this before?’ cries Broom.

Clay shrugs. ‘You prefer the fairy story.’

‘Why did you never tell
me
,’ erupts Candle, ‘that I was marrying a
pirate
!’

Clay looks guilty at that.

‘There’s something else,’ Candle remembers. ‘He knows about Mara – and there’s a storyteller in a box and he does too. And—’

The kitchen girl who has been sitting in rapt silence gives a gasp. When she leans across the table into the glow of the lamp Candle sees she has soft, rounded features like Clay and Broom. Her eyes are beautiful in the lamplight and they meet Candle’s boldly. The new wife of the Pontifix straightens her back and glares at the girl. No kitchen slave should dare to look at her like that.

‘Tuck stole the globe from my mother,’ the girl declares. ‘I want it back. And the halo. He’s just told me,’ she shoots Clay a furious look, ‘Tuck’s got
that
now too!’

Candle tries to stare down the impertinent girl with the too-bold, too-beautiful eyes.

‘This is Mara’s daughter,’ says Clay, sounding as if he needs to take a great gulp of air. ‘Lily Longhope from Candlewood in the mountains.’

Candle keeps her eyes on the girl. She doesn’t want to look at Clay. She has heard all she wants to know about Lily Longhope in Clay’s breathless voice.

‘The globe and the halo belong to my mother,’ Lily is insisting. ‘I want them back.’

‘Candle will help us,’ says Clay, still sounding as if he is holding his breath. ‘She’ll get them back for you and we’ll get out of here, all of us, and escape to the mountains.’

Candle turns to him in amazement. ‘The
mountains
? What about all your ocean dreams?’

Now Clay looks torn.

‘We must go home to our own people,’ says Broom, her face flushed with the thought. ‘Come with us, Candle. You can’t stay with a pirate who killed your father.’

Candle stands up, feeling uncertain and lost. ‘And leave Tuck with everything that belonged to my father? Everything that should be mine! You want what Tuck stole from your mother, don’t you?’ she challenges Lily. ‘Well, I want what he’s taken from my father.’

Lily appraises Candle, then nods.

‘Then maybe we can help each other,’ she suggests, but the other girl has already turned to leave. ‘Wait, Candle – the storyteller? In a box, you sard? He knew Mara? But who is this storyteller? I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ says Candle wearily. ‘And I don’t care any more. I need to sleep. My head’s thumping.’

‘I must go home, Candle,’ Broom quietly persists. ‘Lily’s people are mine. Clay’s father is one of them. I thought they were all dead but they’re alive, in the mountains. Can’t you—’

‘Can’t you all stop yapping and hounding me?’ Candle bursts out. ‘I can’t
think.
You’re still my slave, Broom, and you won’t go
anywhere
unless I let you.’

Clay frowns at his almost-sister, his eyes turning hostile and hard.

‘Gone to your head, has it? Marrying Tuck Culpy, living in a palace. You’re sounding like Rodenglaw’s daughter
now
, aren’t you, Candle – desperate for money and power. You’d really stop my mum from being with her own people? After everything she’s done for you? You know how unhappy she’s been all these years.’

What about me?
Candle wants to shout back.
Haven’t I been unhappy too? Don’t turn against me now – all because of that girl!
But if she speaks she’ll cry, and she will not cry in front of Lily Longhope.

She has been stupid. The globe has some secret power that Tuck and Lily seek. Yet she held that power – the halo, the very thing that would unlock the globe’s magic – in her hands. And she gave it away to her husband like a silly, unthinking girl. Well, she will never give away her power so easily to anyone ever again.

Lily whispers to her but Candle pretends not to hear and runs up the steps, anxious to escape with all her churning feelings and be alone in her bed with the furs drawn over her head.

She can get rid of Lily Longhope any time she likes, she tells herself. The guards would deal with a palace intruder, intent on stealing the Pontifix’s treasures, in the blink of an eye.

But Candle’s heart is heavy. Is Clay right? Has she inherited her father’s brutal greed? If the palace guards tossed that girl into the sea, would she care? But Clay would. She can’t bear to lose him and Broom. How could she stand this life without them if they were to run away to some faraway place in the mountains that Broom has never known but calls home – and she never sees them again?

She has a chance to escape this glass prison and she should grab it, Candle tells herself – but Ilira is
her
home and the injustice of Tuck getting away with murder, looting what is hers by right, fills Candle with an injured fury that all her father’s cruelty never did.

Am I Candle or Tartoq Rodenglaw? Do I belong with Broom and Clay or is my destiny here in Ilira? What is my life to be?

She has only been alive for fifteen Great Darknesses; she might live another fifty or more. What will she do in this barren, empty palace on a rock? Candle sees the years like relentless tides of the ocean, rolling over her, wave after wave.