Souls of Aredyrah 1 - The Fire and the Light (8 page)

The illness had come upon Sedric quickly. Too
quickly some said. There were whispers that something, or someone,
sinister was behind it. The healers held little hope for him, and
everyone knew it was just a matter of time. There was nothing now,
short of an act of the gods, to stop his son’s ascension to the
throne. The entire week had been proclaimed a holiday, and whether
one agreed with the union or not, it had not kept anyone from
taking advantage of the celebration.

The royal family had feasted and toasted
around their own great table for days now. They were eager for the
marriage that would bring some happiness to an otherwise dismal
year. But just as not everyone in the streets believed the union
was a good one, not everyone at the royal table did either.

Brina had sat through it all, day after day,
night after night, but was weary of the soreness of her tongue
where she had bitten it in silence. Tonight, surrounded once again
by the royal revelers, she found she could bear it no more.

“This is a travesty,” she said, pushing up
from the table. She glared at the pasty-faced guests across from
her, their mouths agape at her unexpected words.

“Sit down this instant,” her husband ordered.
“This is neither the time nor the place for you to air your
opinions.” Mahon grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her back down
to her seat.

Brina wrested her arm from his grasp. “Get
your hands off of me, Mahon. I told you never to touch me again, or
have you forgotten?”

Mahon’s face paled, then deepened to shades
of red. He pulled her toward him. “You will cease this now, Brina.
Do you understand? This is a day of celebration.”

“I have sat by for days now and endured this
so-called celebration,” she said. “But what, dear husband, are we
supposed to be celebrating?”

“The wedding of our prince of course,” he
replied. “It is a joyous occasion for everyone in Tearia.” He eyed
the squirming guests across from him, and raised his goblet in an
awkward solute.

“Everyone? No, I think not,” Brina said.
“Reiv, for one—” But before she could say another word, Mahon
squeezed her arm, digging his nails into her flesh.

“You will not mention that name at this
table,” he hissed.

Brina scoffed, then scanned the faces around
her. Those seated at the table were family and friends she knew
well. Once she could have said anything to them without fear of
repercussion. But things had changed this past year, and the
subject of Reiv was one carefully avoided. Brina felt the grip on
her arm tighten as Mahon leaned in closer. The heat of his breath
on her face and the antagonism of his tone surprised her. He was
not a hostile man, but even he had changed this past year.

She raised her head defiantly and worked to
release her arm. “No,” she said. “Let us not mention the one
person’s name that should be mentioned.”

Brina jerked her arm from Mahon’s grasp, then
rose and rested a cool, critical stare on every person seated
there. Some ignored her, as her sister the Queen did, and a few
scowled at her insolence. But most simply looked away in
embarrassment. Brina turned her gaze to the elaborate feast spread
before her. Dozens of golden goblets, once carefully arranged, were
scattered throughout a maze of food, their purple spills bleeding
into the white tablecloth. Plates of half-eaten food sat ignored
while others were piled with second and third helpings. Some guests
did not even bother with plates, choosing to pick from the serving
platters instead. It occurred to Brina, as she stared at the
abundance of discarded food, that most of it would be thrown away.
So many hungry people outside the city walls, yet this would be
tossed into the gutters rather than sent to feed them.

With that thought in mind, she realized that
angering the guests would only serve to prevent her from doing what
had to be done—what she had been doing for years now—and, even more
importantly, what had to be done tonight. She did not excuse
herself, but turned and walked silently from the banquet hall.

Brina was almost to her room when a noise
from behind alerted her. She glanced over her shoulder and frowned,
then quickened her pace. It was Mahon, come no doubt to settle with
her. He was at the far end of the long corridor that led to her
private chamber, but even from that distance she could tell he was
primed for battle. She clenched her jaw and kept on walking.

“How could you have behaved like that,” Mahon
said upon reaching her. “How could you have mentioned Reiv’s name
at a celebration of your nephew’s wedding?”

“The fact that it is a celebration of my
nephew’s wedding is the very reason I felt it needed to be
mentioned,” she said. She continued toward her room, her eyes
averted from her husband’s exasperated face. He would not follow
her all the way. He would not dare.

Mahon followed at her heels, his long strides
keeping up with her short, quick ones. “Brina, you must listen to
reason,” he said. He increased his pace to round her and planted
himself between her and her chamber door. Brina reached for the
door handle, but he positioned his body in front of it.

“Out of my way,” Brina said indignantly. “I
am tired and wish to go to bed.” She attempted another reach for
the handle, but he moved to once again block her.

Mahon cocked a brow and narrowed his eyes.
“Tired? Or is this merely an excuse to sneak out and see Reiv?”

Brina shot him a glare, then fumbled for the
handle and shoved the door open. She brushed past him and entered
the room. He followed her inside.

She spun to face him, her hands balled into
fists. “Get out!” she shouted. “You have no right to be here.”

Mahon closed the door behind him and secured
the lock with a click. “I have every right to be here.”

“No, you do not, not since--”

Mahon’s jaw went slack. “Brina, please.”

“Please what? Please do not remind you of
what you did to our child? Or please let your murderous hands touch
me?”

“You know what happened to our child had to
be done,” he said.

“Do I detect a tear, husband? And who would
it be for? Our infant son, or his executioner?”

“You know I did not kill our son!”

“Perhaps you did not kill him with your own
hands, but your insistence that it be done took him from us just
the same.”

Mahon grabbed her by the shoulders. “You are
right. It was not done by my hands. It was done by yours! You would
allow no one else to touch him. It was you, not me that—"

“Do not turn this on me,” Brina said, pulling
away.

“I am turning this on you. You know I would
have had someone else do it. Why did you insist on carrying the
burden yourself?”

“I would not have the last eyes my child ever
saw be those of a stranger!” Brina turned aside. “Please, let us
not speak of this anymore. It is too painful, and it will not bring
Keefe back to us.”

Mahon nodded and reached to embrace her. She
rebuked him and stepped away. “It is time you left,” she said.

“You still have not answered my earlier
question. Are you planning to see Reiv tonight?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Mahon exploded in fury, raking perfume
bottles, hair clips, and combs from the dressing table, sending
them crashing to the floor. “I will not allow it!” he screamed.

Brina winced and backed away, wondering if
she, too, would be raked to the floor. She lifted her chin with
shaky determination. “I will not be kept from him, Mahon. He needs
me.”

“
He
needs you? What about me? I am
your husband.
I
need you.”

“The sort of need you have is neither so
great nor so important as the one Reiv has.”

Brina walked slowly toward him, noting how
his body was poised as if in a fight for his life. She placed a
hand on his arm. “Mahon, please try to understand,” she said with
forced control. “You did not sit by the boy’s bed night and day
listening to his screams as the bandages were pulled from his
hands. You were not there when we thought the fever would surely
take him. You were not there to listen to his pleas for Cinnia and
his mother, neither of whom even bothered to come and see him. You
were not there to see his face when he learned Cinnia was betrothed
to Whyn, his own brother. And you were not there to hear his sobs
when he found out he had been disinherited by his family in a mock
court that took not only his inheritance, but his future. How do
you think he feels to have lost everything, including his very
name? To have been called Ruairi, the Red King, for fifteen years,
then to be forced to take the name ‘Reiv’, the name of a servant.
Gods, Mahon, where is your compassion? Have you no room in your
heart for the boy?”

“What happened he brought upon himself.”

“Brought upon himself? Gods, he was saving
Cinnia’s life.”

“From a fire he started!”

“It was an accident, Mahon.”

“Perhaps, but he had a history of so-called
accidents. No, he got what he deserved.”

Mahon paused, surveying Brina’s stricken
face. “I am sorry that Ruairi—that Reiv has suffered,” he offered.
“But what is done is done. Be thankful Labhras provided him with a
respectable job. Foreman over the fields would be considered an
honor for any Jecta.”

Brina cringed at the word.

“Brina, Reiv is Jecta now,” Mahon said. “You
have to face it. Things could have gone much worse. You know this.
At least he was not banished to Pobu. Considering the boy burned
down Labhras’s house and endangered everyone in it, I would say the
man has been more than generous. Reiv has been provided an
apartment within the city walls and he will certainly never go
hungry. What more does he need?”

“He needs his life back,” Brina said.

But in her heart she knew he would never get
it, and after the wedding of his brother, Whyn, to Cinnia in three
days time, she wasn’t sure Reiv would want any life at all.

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Chapter 5: Peace Offering

A
nother terracotta
pot streaked across the atrium, trailed by a spinning ball of dirt
and a once well-rooted marigold. The missile found its mark and
crashed against a pillar that divided the centrally located
courtyard from the rest of the apartment. Shards of pottery, clumps
of soil, and what remained of the plant exploded against the stone,
the noise of it drowned out by the scream of the boy who had hurled
it.

Reiv stood poised as if for battle, his
trembling hands clenched within leather gloves, his face as red as
the hair bound at his back. In that instant he wanted to kill
somebody, anybody would do, though a few familiar faces came
immediately to mind. If only he could run those faces through with
his sword and make them suffer as much as he had, perhaps he could
breath a little easier, or at least get some sleep. But he knew he
never would, no matter how great the insidious fantasy seemed at
the moment. Tearian law forbade him to even own a sword now. Reiv
grabbed another plant and raised it above his head, then sent it
flying into a table of zinnias. For now, killing plants would just
have to do.

He reached for another, but realized the
foolishness of his actions. It wouldn’t change anything. He knew
that. And he would be the one to have to clean up the mess. There
were no longer servants to do his bidding.

“Ruairi, the prince who wanted to slay
lions,” he muttered. “Now Reiv, the slayer of marigolds.” He shook
his head and looked around the messy atrium. Of all places to take
out his frustrations, this had probably not been the best
choice.

The atrium had actually become his sanctuary
during the past several months, after his hands had begun to heal
and he was forced to relocate there. The plants at least gave him
something to do when he wasn’t working the fields. Before, when he
was Prince and didn’t have to tend to such menial tasks, he had
thought of cultivating plants as woman’s work. But Brina had helped
him start a garden in the atrium on the pretense that they could
work together to develop healing lotions for his hands.

Between the two of them they had grown an
assortment of herbs and flowering plants, and had tried their
skills at a number of homemade medicinals which Reiv rubbed into
his burns every day. Unfortunately, the medicinals had not had the
effect on his hands he had hoped for. The scars were bad enough to
look at—he almost ¬always wore gloves to hide them—but it was the
lack of sensitivity and decreased mobility in his fingers that
annoyed him the most. Most areas of his hands were all but numb,
the burns so deep that damage to nerves could not be undone. With
exercise he had managed to maintain some dexterity, but his grasp
on things would never be the same. Picking leaves off of plants
didn’t require much strength, but his fine motor skills required
concentration and patience. And it was patience he was most
lacking.

He stormed over to the mess that littered the
once spotless floor and groaned. If only he had stopped with one
plant, but he hadn’t, and now there were not one but several piles
of dirt, broken clay, and wilting leaves to clean up. He gathered
up a few shards of terracotta and cradled them in his hand, then
flung them back down to the floor, smashing them into smaller
pieces still.

“Oh, I do not care!” he shouted. “Just stay
there!”

He marched toward the living area, threw back
the dividing drape, and plopped down onto the chaise in a huff. The
room was usually dark, as was the rest of the apartment. There were
no windows facing the streets on any side of the place, which
suited him just fine. He didn’t care to look out into the streets
anyway. The only light that ever entered any of the rooms was from
the central courtyard. That is, if he bothered to pull back the
heavy drapes that separated it from the rest of the house. Many
days he didn’t bother to pull them back at all, preferring to exist
in the darkness. He didn’t know why he felt that way. Perhaps the
darkness desensitized him. But he had left the drape open when he
stormed into the room just now, and the annoying light of morning
was filtering in.