Echoes of Silence (11 page)

I felt as though I could use some of their endurance now, for each step fueled the anger building in my chest. I feared I wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue when I next saw Cris. He needed to know the horrors Gibson carried out in his name. Surely he didn’t want to be responsible for the senseless murders of innocent people.

Entrenched in my thoughts, I didn’t notice where we were in the compound. The whole thing was a hopeless maze to me anyway, but I’d like to think I’d been learning how to get back to my room. So when the siren started, I became disoriented.

Castillo’s hand covered mine, and if my heart hadn’t already been racing from the wailing alarm, his touch would have done it. Inside, my magic leaped, ready to obey whatever my voice might command.

“This way.” He pulled me in the opposite direction we’d been moving.

The hallways flooded with people, most of them wearing service uniforms. At the next corner, Matu met us, his eyes bright and alert. “Advancing army from the eastern villages,” he said. “His Majesty has requested Echo accompany him.”

Castillo nodded. “He must meet them at the wall.”

“I don’t think it’s time to reveal our full hand,” Matu responded, completing a conversation I didn’t understand—yet. Castillo had let me into his mind willingly once. I could get in again, even without his permission.

“Nevertheless, he must meet them at the wall.” The three of us clustered together, moving swiftly through the chaos in the hall. I caught a glimpse of the door to my suite ahead, complete with Helena’s waving arm and frantic expression.

Matu and Castillo tumbled into the room after me, their faces tight with tension. My maids stood ready in the doorway, Lucia holding a traveling cloak and Greta waiting to attack me with the hairbrush.

Helena whisked me toward my ladies, all the while chattering at Matu and Castillo in that blasted language I couldn’t understand. They responded in one-word monotones while my hair got shined, and my shoes switched to more sensible riding boots, and glinting silver pins fastened my cloak.

It certainly seemed as though I’d be leaving the compound. “Castillo, what—?”

“He’s coming,” Matu said, barely loud enough to hear over Helena’s chastisement. Somehow, everyone heard, and Castillo glared in my direction.

“Please, Echo,” he said at the same time the door creaked open. All stood silently, watching either me or Cris.

“Your Majesty,” I said, dipping into a curtsy. “Are we going on an outing?”

His eyebrows crept up, and he cast an annoyed glance toward Helena. “I was told she would be informed of the situation.”

“There has been no time, Your Majesty,” Helena replied in an even voice. “Surely you remember that lunch only just ended.”

I watched the Prince as Helena’s words slapped him. She delivered them with perfect accuracy, and his face tightened, his lips creased into a frown, and a flush entered his cheeks.

“Perhaps you will have time to speak with her on your journey
to the wall
,” Castillo added.

His eyebrows turned down in a way that said, “I will certainly not have time.” Then he turned to me, and the disapproval melted away into a smooth smile. “Come, my dear Echo. It’s not safe for us here at the moment.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Not safe? Cris?” I felt the weight of his name on my tongue, and surprisingly, it wasn’t that bitter.

“A village uprising,” he said. “We must seek to resolve it.” He hooked my arm through his elbow and steered me toward the door.

“Do you mean to use murder as a means of resolution?” I studied him for the slightest indication of displeasure. A small flinch, as if I’d flicked water in his eyes, was his only reaction.

Around us, the air seemed to evaporate. Even Castillo watched me with a mixture of disbelief and horror written across his face. His mouth had opened into an O, and he no longer blinked.

“I don’t wish there to be bloodshed,” I continued. “Surely you have diplomats, Your Majesty. Someone who can reason with the villagers?” I tightened my grip on Cris’s arm, more to settle myself than to communicate anything to him. In the hall, someone hissed as they exhaled.

He drew me closer to his side as we exited my chambers. I couldn’t tell if it was meant to protect me or as a clear indication that he owned me. “Yes,” he said quietly, his mouth bent only inches from my ear. “I have diplomats.”

“Excellent.” My pulse bobbed in my throat at the closeness of the Prince, at the dancing of my magic in my bloodstream. The halls had cleared and the siren had quieted. Yet my steps became unsure as we followed Gibson and Bo. Matu and Castillo brought up the rear, but neither of them made the slightest noise. I had hoped Castillo would have the sense to stay close, in case our combined power as bonds would be necessary.

We exited to the street, where a double-long carriage with a single team of horses waited at the ready. Unmarked, the carriage bore nothing to reveal who it carried. The six of us piled in, and the driver set off at a brisk clip. The jarring motion of the vehicle did little to calm the raging storm in my stomach. There were so many details to sort through, and not enough time to give them the proper attention.

“Echo,” the Prince said after a few minutes. “I need you to be the diplomat.”

#

I’d attended school at the foot of Grandmother’s rocking chair. She’d taught me to sew, to cook, to clean, to take time to run freely through the fields. She’d instructed me in reading and math, in life, in love.

“Look for opportunities to love,” she had said. “You will be happy if you do. You will one day love someone so deeply, you will wonder how you functioned without them.”

I’d wanted to ask her about Grandfather, and if she missed him. But I didn’t need to. She wore the missing in the lines along her eyes, in the way she sighed before bed without him to kiss goodnight.

She certainly hadn’t taught me the ways of diplomacy. I hadn’t even mastered the art of censoring my thoughts before they burst from my mouth. Or the laughter that sprang from my throat now.

I didn’t mind that
villager uprising
bounced in the empty spaces of my laughter. Or that I was the only one making any noise. Until Castillo coughed. The sound ricocheted inside my head, somewhat like the gunshots I’d heard only hours earlier.

I cut off the laughter and cradled my face in my hands. I suddenly felt ill from the jerking motion of the carriage, and the meals I’d been forced to skip, and the thought of acting as the Prince’s diplomat before his bride.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to erase the horrific images from the courtyard and quiet my increasing fears about what I might find waiting at the city wall. Greta would be so disappointed I’d ruined her makeup.

A hand touched my back, light and hesitant. When I didn’t jerk away, it rested there. Feelings of peace flowed through me. The Prince’s magic could apparently be used for more than lust.

I straightened, and his hand dropped into his lap. I appreciated the gesture and told him so. He flashed a tight smile before pulling back the curtain and peering through the dirty window.

“Cris,” Gibson snapped, and the Prince dropped the curtain with a glare in his guard’s direction, but the fight in his expression sank into my mind. If he knew everything Bo and Gibson did, I was sure he’d stop them.

When the carriage came to rest, the Prince remained seated while the others climbed out. I stayed with him, seized with the sudden thought that I shouldn’t exit the carriage as the guards did, that I was more than a servant girl now.

I was the Prince’s . . . sweetheart did not seem like the right word. He had twelve girls to choose from. I hadn’t been chosen yet, so fiancée or queen didn’t fit.

“Princess.” Castillo’s voice carried through the partially open carriage door.

I exhaled. That’s what I was. A princess.
Castillo’s princess?
I glanced at Cris, wondering if he could hear the vein of emotion under Castillo’s words, wondering if Bo or Gibson had noticed that Castillo and I had bonded. The Prince caught my eye, and the musings morphed into worry for the situation at hand.

“Don’t think,” the Prince counseled. “Just speak. You’re one of them. Tell them what they want to hear.”

“I’m not a liar.” I gripped the fabric of my dress in too-tight fists.

“I didn’t say to lie.”

“You also didn’t say not to.” I climbed out of the carriage. The sun hovered on the edge of the horizon, flirting with the approaching darkness. People clogged the road before me. Castillo, Matu, Bo, Gibson and an additional dozen armed guards created a bubble that extended fifteen feet around the carriage in every direction.

Fire flickered in front of me, illuminating the faces of angry men. Their clothes seemed ill-fitted and worn, definitely homespun from thick fibers. Dirt marred their hands and boots and everything in between. These were working men, here to defend their families from an unknown—and unwanted—ruler.

I scanned the group as if I’d see a familiar face from Iskadar. Perhaps I’d see the butcher or the stable master. Perhaps Oake. Hope flared at the thought of him.

“My people,” I began, and immediately knew it was the wrong way to start. Teeth clenched, and the crowd closest to the carriage shifted uneasily.

I cleared my throat and began again. “My name is Echo del Toro, and I hail from Iskadar.” My voice rose into the air, confident and authoritative, but nowhere near loud enough.

Whispers raced through the crowd. Men strained to see me. Torches lifted higher.

Castillo, who stood closest to me, half turned at my touch. “I need to climb on top of the carriage,” I whispered. “Can you help me, please?”

“Of course.” He offered me his hand. My fingers in his shook like the magicians had cursed them with ancient melodies. At least climbing up the wheel to the seat and then to the roof of the carriage was easy in my comfortable traveling boots.

My cloak rippled in the breeze as I surveyed the crowd. They seemed to stretch from here to the mountains, though surely they couldn’t fill so great a space. Still, their faces created a sea I’d rather not view.

“My name is Echo del Toro, and I hail from Iskadar,” I repeated, this time in a voice that would carry across the expanse. “His Majesty has appointed me the diplomat between he and thee. Who speaks for this group?”

Waves of conversation swelled through the crowd. A disturbance broke the rows of men to my left. Someone strode forward. He wore a hat of curious workmanship, and I knew him before the crowd parted to let him through.

Oake also wore his magician colors and had pinned his wizardry flag to his left lapel. He stood gazing at me with more emotion in his eyes than I’d seen previously, even that last time when he’d urged me to leave Iskadar before the rumored hunting parties arrived, claimed my power, and left me disabled.

My breath stalled at the sight of him. He looked well, and I wondered if he’d held his ground in Iskadar, or if he’d been forced into the forests. I wondered if he was disappointed I hadn’t written. I’d meant to, but found that I couldn’t find happy words, and I wouldn’t burden him with my disappointments and discouraging news. He hadn’t sent any correspondence either, but perhaps he’d been too busy organizing uprisings.

I found my fingers clutching at the throat of my dress, and I forced my hand to my side, the emotion flowing thick between us. How I wished to speak with Oake alone!

“I speak for the group.” The sound of his voice reopened a crack inside that I’d previously sealed. The one that longed to let my caged voice fly, the way he’d so often encouraged. The one with Grandmother inside. The one that housed my past.

I wished I could send him a subliminal message.
Please do not reveal my magic, please do not reveal my magic.

“What are your grievances?” My tone came out smooth, something for which I thanked the stars above.

“The Prince wishes to tax us. We will not pay tribute to someone we have never met nor have any interest in supporting.”

“What is the tax?”

“One half.”

Fury boiled in my stomach. What a classless oaf of a prince. How dare he think he can take half of what these people work day and night to earn? And for what? So he could wear purple silks sewn with silver threads to dine with a dozen girls?

The anger fueled my courage. “That’s clearly too much,” I called out loudly, to ensure Cris would hear me inside the carriage. “What do you think is fair?” I couldn’t tear my eyes from Oake’s.

“Zero,” he said.

“The outer villages in the eastern sector support themselves, do they not?”

“They do,” Oake answered. “We’ve always supported our own.”

I didn’t miss the way he enunciated “supported our own.” Did I still belong in that group? How many more in the crowd recognized me? I wondered how different I looked in fancy dresses and makeup and with a solid year of hard living behind me.

I studied each face, each line of exhaustion carved around their eyes from hours of farming and sewing and blacksmithing. Each spark of devotion to their families. Each squared shoulder determined to stay and fight until this matter was resolved.

I longed to join them. To drop my royal silk dress and exchange it for the calico print I’d loved as a child. To feel the earth between my fingers, and the swell of the summer breeze as I ran through the emptiness of the sky.

A dangerous idea entered my mind. I wondered if it would push Cris to his breaking point, if Helena’s spell had foreseen my loose tongue. I clutched my hands tighter against each other for strength. No matter what the consequences, I couldn’t stomach the taxation of my people.

“You may go on your way,” I announced, just as the tension reached its breaking point. “You have no obligation to this prince. Support one another. Love one another. Go, and peace go with you.”

Cheers erupted from the men, and Oake became swallowed up by the sound before I could meet his eyes again. I had much to say to him, but before I took another breath, Castillo captured my hand in his. I was shoved into the carriage, and the jolting journey back to the compound began.

Silence reigned for a moment before I sternly said, “And I hope all village prisoners will be released.”