Forest Born (23 page)

“Watch them,” Isi said, pointing to the heap of people and furniture in the corner.

Enna and Dasha nodded, and water began to flow over the hearth-watchers, down their heads, soaking their clothes, making a pool on the ground around them. Enna stood on one side of the cage of furniture and Dasha on the other, hands twitching as if ready to attack at any provocation, eyes roving over Isi and Selia, trying to determine if things were settled yet.

One of the soldier’s hands strayed to a dagger in his boot. Enna kicked him in the ribs. “Try it and this fire-haired Tiran fiend will drown you where you sit.”

The hearth-watchers recoiled, wiping at the water oozing down their faces, blubbering anxiously, some reaching for their mistress.

Rin jumped to her feet and put herself between Selia and the now-open entrance to the stairs, her hands in fists. The look of terror on Selia’s face almost made Rin laugh. Half-hysterical, Selia began circling, frantic for an escape. Selia’s clothes and hair were whipping around her body, and if she was yelling commands to her trapped followers, the wind circling her face swallowed the sounds.

“You are never going to touch my family again,” Isi said, her voice cold and firm. She still had not moved from the center of the room. “You will let me bind your hands and mouth and you’ll come quietly with me back to a cozy Bayern prison, or . . .” Wind nudged a barrel that had been pushed aside in the windstorm and rolled it to rest at Selia’s feet. “Or I’ll fetch some nails and a couple of horses, and we can take care of this right now.”

Selia kicked the barrel away and swatted at the wind as if at bees. Her lips were moving, chanting something, and she flung herself about. Her running seemed frantic and without thought until suddenly she was at the narrow window, just wide enough for one person to fit through. Selia clawed her way onto the sill.

Rin heard Isi gasp with surprise, and wind swept through the window, trying to push Selia back into the room. But she did not pause before flinging herself out.

The wind hushed. With hurried bursts of steam, water gathered over the fires and fell in puffs, so in moments the room that had been filled with burning and whipping chaos was calmed to silence.

Enna and Rin ran to the window while Isi turned a glare at the soldiers and hearth-watchers buried under furniture. Rin doubted that through the clutter and wind they’d seen what had just happened.

“I am not feeling jovial at this precise moment,” Isi said. “So let me make this clear. You move to attack any one of us, and you’re a bonfire. Nod your heads if you understand me.”

There was some general head nodding. The hearth-watchers were searching the room with their eyes, looking for Selia. Some began to wail in Kelish.

“Dasha, if they so much as twitch . . .”

Dasha nodded. Her eyes never left her captives. “I am in such a mood. I feel positively unhinged. Did you know I could fill your lungs with water? It’s a trick I long to show the first of you who twitches aggressively.”

Enna was leaning out the window, craning to get a view. “Um, Isi . . .”

Isi waited until she was near Enna, her back to the captives, before asking quietly, “The serpent got away, didn’t she?”

“Actually, no. She . . . no. Her life heat . . . it’s gone. There’s no chance she lived through this one.”

Rin put a hand on Enna’s shoulder and stood on her toes. She could just see Selia’s pink skirt fanned out above her bare feet. The fall had knocked off her slippers.

“I have to see,” said Isi, “or I won’t sleep again for worrying that she’s sneaking into Tusken’s room.”

Still, she hesitated a moment before getting close enough to lean out the window. While she’d been attacking, she’d seemed regal, impervious. Now she looked very human again, slight even, and sorry.

Isi’s voice dipped low. “Do you think she died quickly?”

“I’d been rooting for an excruciatingly slow and terrifically painful end for our fair queen of Kel, but yes, I’d say she hit those stones headfirst and was gone before her feet caught up.”

Dasha, too far from the window to hear the exchange, looked inquiringly at Rin. Rin nodded her head, yes, Selia was dead. Dasha’s shoulders relaxed.

“It makes you wonder, though,” said Enna, still staring out the window, “what she was thinking there at the end. Seemed like she was shouting something, and I can’t help wondering . . .”

“I heard it.” Isi leaned her elbow on the sill, wrenching her gaze from Selia’s body up to the afternoon horizon. “She said, ‘I will die a queen.’ ”

Rin shuddered.

“Sick in the head,” said Enna. “I’ve said that all along. Sick. In. The. Head.”

“How did you get out?” asked Isi.

“A page told us he heard fighting upstairs, so we couldn’t just sit there. Dasha had been sending water into the masonry around the door for the past couple of days. Loosened a rock. A few good kicks and we were free. I was going to try to burn through the lock, but the whole door is metal . . .” Enna shrugged. “I still think I could’ve done it, but I admit, she was clever working at it the way she did.”

One of the hearth-watchers spoke in Kelish and the wailing turned into rejoicing. Another pointed at Isi and said, “She is gone now, you are never for finding her. And she will coming for us and we are being her chosen again!”

Enna whispered, “Doubt that.”

Isi headed for the burned-out door. “Rin, come with me please. Enna, Dasha, can you . . . ?” She inclined her head toward the heap of prisoners.

“Yes, of course,” Enna started, “but—”

“She’s going to get Tusken,” Rin explained as she ran after the queen. She did not dare say anything about Razo until she was sure. “We’ll be a few hours.”

Chapter 26

R
in sped after Isi, leaping down stairs and sweeping past sentries. If a soldier challenged Isi, his weapon blazed in his hands. To the gate guards, Isi said, “Selia, the so-called queen of Kel, is dead.”

Rin could see the guards knew it was true. Selia’s body must have been spotted and news was spreading around the keep. Their eyes were hot with sorrow and mistrust. But Isi did not flinch.

“I am Queen Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee of Bayern, friend to King Scandlan. In his name, I reclaim Castle Daire for Kel. I will hold this fortress for your sovereign, and any who oppose my authority or that of my three companions will be stripped of his rank and cast in the dungeon to await the king’s verdict. Send your quickest messenger to Bressal to inform Scandlan of his bride’s fate and request his presence here. Now please fetch me three horses.”

Nobody moved. There was a significant amount of staring going on.

Isi sighed. She pointed to the young page with the skin spots who was peering around the corridor. “You. Are you capable of riding messenger to Bressal?”

He nodded, his eyes bright. Isi turned a questioning look at Rin, and she nodded too—he seemed trustworthy.

“I don’t have time to write a formal letter. Just be as straightforward as you know how. Tell King Scandlan what you’ve seen here, and tell him I respectfully request his presence. Now climb on a horse.” She pointed to the soldier closest to the gate. “And you, unlock this girl’s shackles, then prepare three horses, fast movers saddled to ride.”

Isi did not have people-speaking. Her words did not affect Rin as Selia’s had, slide into her head and make her itch to believe and obey. But when Isi spoke, Rin had no doubt she was in the presence of a queen. Neither, apparently, did the gate guard. He fumbled for a key from his belt to click open Rin’s wrist clamps then fled toward the stables.

Rin breathed through a smile as she and Isi followed, a rush of elation making her limbs tingle. It had been frightening in the moment, but now she felt swept away and flying. Isi was amazing, Rin had done . . . something, and it had felt so good. Hope was thick in her chest. With relief came the awareness of her injuries: burns on her leg and the insides of her wrists, a scratch on her shoulder from an arrow, and bruised knuckles from punching Selia. There did not seem to be a spot on her body free of ache.

Soon they were mounted and riding north, a third horse trotting behind on a lead rope.

“Can you hear what all horses think?” Rin asked, between hurried bites of the bread they’d borrowed from the stablehands’ supply. Her stomach groaned pathetically.

“No, I can only speak with my own horse. I was present at his birth and formed that initial bond. But having communication with my horse has helped me to understand all of them, at least in part. Not their language, but their meaning.”

“So can you tell whether or not this horse is plotting my death?”

Isi laughed. Perhaps Isi thought Rin was joking, but Rin could not help notice that she did not answer the question.

As they got closer to where Rin had left Razo, Isi gripped her reins, her focus dead ahead. Rin’s middle was icy with anticipation. She let her hands graze tree branches and trunks as they hurried past. Two days in a stone dungeon had felt like two years.

Isi’s gaze whipped to the side, and Rin looked, hoping to see Razo’s face. Instead a stranger on horseback cantered through the trees—a soldier, his weapon raised. He yelled in Kelish but his sword turned red hot and fell from his hand, then wind knocked him out of his saddle and onto the ground. Two companions flanked him, and they too were soon on their backsides in the bracken.

Isi stayed mounted, tall above them. “Do you speak the western tongue? Good. Then hear this: your search is off. I am Queen Anidori-Kiladra of Bayern. Your former mistress is dead, your king is coming to Daire. Go back to the castle and await his arrival.”

Their eyes darted to their cooling swords, as if planning a new attack. Isi sighed.

“Will you tell them, Rin?” Isi’s question and look were so direct, Rin had no doubt of Isi’s meaning. She guessed that Rin was a people-speaker. And that made Rin want to scratch up a blanket of moss and pull it over her head.

She took a breath to steady her shivers and studied the soldiers’ faces a moment before speaking.

“Did you love your queen of Kel?”

The soldiers’ attention was wholly hers.

“You did love her. But she was not made for a long life. You felt that, didn’t you? That this couldn’t last. That her reign had to be brief, a fire that burns too hot. She’s dead. You were true servants to her, but your service is over now. Time to go back to the castle, to mourn and await the king. You’ll have a new service, and it’ll be even more important than your time with the queen of Kel.”

Rin could see they believed her words, but they had to decide to act on them. One by one, they picked up their fallen weapons, mounted their horses, and rode south.

As soon as the third soldier was gone, Isi nudged her horse forward.

“So, Rin . . .” Isi seemed anxious as she scanned the trees, eager to talk just to relieve her nerves. Rin tensed for a question about people-speaking, but instead Isi asked, “What do you think of Kel?”

“Kel? Nice, I guess, but they need larger dungeons.”

Isi smiled. “You seem different now. More ready to speak.”

“Sorry,” Rin said, her face hot.

“Oh no, please don’t be sorry! I admire you for sharing your thoughts. It’s hard for me to talk casually, I worry so much about saying the wrong thing, offending. I’ve often wished along with understanding birds and horses I had people-speaking, a talent that could bring me closer to people.”

“Closer? But look what it did to Selia.”

“She was overcome by it. Selia might have learned another language herself if she ever held still to listen. But she was too busy talking. To be more aware of other people, to see through lies and fear and really comprehend a person—that should be a noble gift. People-speakers like Selia, they let their desires lead them, burn them up. They don’t have balance. Though I don’t know what could balance people-speaking.”

“Nothing,” said Rin.

“Balance with any gift of speaking is essential, but especially, I think, with people and nature. With nature-speaking, you have to be the master. Change the wind or fire, change the water or trees, don’t let them change you. Animal-speaking is different—I can’t control my horse, can’t order him the way Enna and I command the wind. I just listen. I’m just happy to understand. Same with the birds. I speak with them, but they aren’t a tool I can use. By understanding, I’m the one who’s changed.”

“Trees are more animal than nature, then.”

Isi nodded, her expression surprised. “I guess that’s so—trees are living things, like animals. The living things have no master, the living things change the person who understands them.”

Then I’m the one who’s changed,
Rin thought, but she said, “People are living, too.”

“I don’t imagine Selia gave that much thought. People-speaking tends to warp, makes the speaker want to be the master of people, to control, not to listen. But if there was someone who was careful and didn’t try to control everything, just understood, just listened . . . if there was someone who could do that . . .”

Someone like you,
Rin thought. This queen was the kind of person who could be a people-speaker and not devolve into Selia, who could know all the languages and contain them. Rin did not think that even if she lived beside Isi for the rest of her life, she could learn how to be like the queen.

Isi seemed about to say something else when her attention snapped forward. She nudged her horse into a gallop.

“Tusken? Tuksen!” She dismounted, not bothering to tie up her horse, and rushed forward. “Tusken? Ma’s here. Tusken, honey boy?”

There was a two-year-old shriek, and Tusken came streaking out of the brush with arms wide. He rammed into his mother, and she laughed as she fell to the ground, Tusken on top of her.

“Ma!” he yelled. “Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma!”

Isi held him and held him, burying her face in his neck, rocking him and squeezing him and kissing his head, rubbing her tears into his hair, all the while saying, “Oh, I love you, I love you so much, and you’re all right, you’re all right.”

Razo sauntered out of the trees, hands in his pockets, seemingly unworried, though Rin could see he’d been near frantic before they came. “Knew you’d do it, though you took your time, eh, Rinny-binny? I was going to strike out for Bayern tomorrow—”

Then Rin was hugging him. Relief and joy swelled inside her till she thought she would burst.

“Uh . . . ,” Razo said, patting her head as if she might be crazy.

“You were dead,” she mumbled against his chest.

“I was? Well, I wish someone had told me. Would’ve been nice to relax on my back for a while. Um, how’d I die?”

“Selia said you were fleeing from her soldiers and your sling was no match for a sword.”

“Ha! Then she’s never seen me sling.”

“Isi died too, but just for a minute.”

Razo shook his head. “What’ve you girls been up to? I hate it when I miss all the good action.”

Rin hugged him tighter, enjoying the feel of his ribs rising and lowering with a breath, the heat of his heart coming through his chest, and considered that a brother, a living big brother, was the best, safest, greatest thing in all the world.

Razo groaned and Rin released him, remembering his broken rib. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “A little pain is the least I deserve for dying on you.”

“That is so true.”

It was not long before Tusken had enough of holding still in his mother’s embrace. He squirmed away, took her hand and said, “Up, Ma. Up.”

“Can’t keep him out of the trees,” said Razo. “He’s a Forest boy at heart, no question there. Isi, you’d best come stay with my ma or Finn’s ma at least, let Tusken get in some climbing. Those showy little shrubs you have in your gardens are a good joke, but this boy needs a real challenge.” Razo pointed to a towering evergreen. “You should see him go!”

“Razo,” Rin said sternly. “You didn’t let him climb that tree, did you?”

Razo’s expression froze, mouth wide. He glanced at Isi, then back to Rin. “No. No! Of course not. Because that tree’s way too high for a two-year-old. Right? Way too high. We just . . . just looked at that one. In an admiring sort of way. From afar. And climbed those bitty squatty ones over there, is all.”

But Tusken had dragged his mother by the hand to the base of the monstrous evergreen, reaching for the lowest branch and saying, “Up. Up.”

“Razo,” Rin hissed.

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” he whispered back. “The boy’s a climber. He’s got the balance of a bird and the hands of a squirrel, not to mention stubbornness equal to our Enna.”

They rode unchallenged through the gates of Castle Daire just as the sun grazed the western horizon. Some of the soldiers even saluted. Rin tumbled off her horse, grabbed Razo’s hand and half-dragged him, making for the winding stairs. But Isi said, “No, they’re outside,” so Rin veered toward the courtyard, passing from the dark stone castle back into the luminous sunset. She could not move quickly enough. Her heart thrummed with excitement.

Half of the courtyard was soaked in yellow light, the leaves in the kitchen garden rimmed with gold as if trying on autumn tones. A group of people stood in the distance, but for all the rich light, Rin could not tell orange hair from black.

“Dasha!” she yelled. “Dasha!”

A face looked up. Then two. They started walking toward her, then running. Dasha was in front, her eyes set on Razo, her face caught in an expression of desperate hope.

“Razo,” she said, panting as if she had been running from very far away. “Razo, it had better be you. If it just looks like you, I am going to kill you. It had better—”

He’d reached her by then. They embraced, and he swung her around, her legs lifting in the air, her tunic swirling. She laughed high and so pleased Rin thought she could break glass with that sound. Then Dasha was kissing Razo’s face and crying and smiling and declaring all his perfections.

“Well, this isn’t half-bad,” said Razo. “I think I’ll die more often.”

Rin was so happy she could not help bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Enna was staring, at Razo, at Rin, at Isi with Tusken in her arms, her eyes so wide as if she did not dare believe what she saw. “But what . . . ?” she said. “But how . . . ?”

Isi said, “Selia lied. He was never caught.”

Enna leaned her head back and laughed at the sky. “Of course he wasn’t! What could kill Razo?”

Dasha embraced him again and squeezed until Razo had to admit that he was injured. “Love the lips, not the ribs,” he said, and pulled her into a long kiss.

From the midst of the group of people just beyond the garden, a fire was blazing, its smoke black and ugly against the golden sky.

“What’s happening there?” asked Isi.

Enna grimaced. “The hearth-watchers. It’s their funeral pyre.”

Isi’s eyes flashed to Enna, her expression full of frightened disbelief. Rin had to wonder too—had Enna killed them?

“Not me,” Enna said, her smile sad that she would need to assure them. “Not me, Isi.”

“No, of course not. But what happened?”

“Later,” Dasha said, still smiling up at Razo, holding his arm around her waist. “Right now let’s go eat and celebrate and gaze at Razo some more. And sleep. In a bed! How would that be? No one will threaten our peace to night unless they fancy a swim in dry air. We can talk about the unpleasant parts in the morning.”

Unsure whom they could trust among the castle servants, Isi dismissed the kitchen workers and steward for a couple of hours. Isi and Tusken sat on the kitchen floor, playing with pots. Dasha and Razo tried to cut vegetables, but stopped so often to tickle each other or whisper or kiss, Enna finally wrenched the knives away and did it herself. Rin helped, and they all dined on a good Forest meal. As they ate on the floor, Razo recounted his past days with tense narrative and plenty of dramatic pauses. Isi in turn told some of their time in the castle, but before she could recount her confrontation with Selia, Tusken had fallen asleep in Isi’s arms, so she declared it well past bedtime.