Waiting for Magic (48 page)

His two-handed overhead blow came next.

She sidestepped, raising her sword to block, then slid her blade along his toward his face. With his slow shift and parry, she could have shaved him if she’d wanted. And he knew it, too.

She put all her remaining strength into her final move.

But Setteff also knew the end approached, and blade met blade in the finishing cross.

They held their positions for the required five seconds, straining into the pose. Then both stepped back, lowered their swords, and fisted hand to chest.

Micfal, their weaponsmaster, strode across the wooden floor. The late-afternoon sun gleamed through the high windows, gilding his white-streaked bronze hair. Although a peer of their departed grandsire, Micfal moved with the agility of a man half his age, and his blue eyes under bushy brows had lost none of their sharpness.

He turned his penetrating gaze on Setteff and tugged his braided beard, a sure sign of displeasure. “You’ve been spending too much time at Sailor’s Tavern, Setteff. It’s reflecting in your pas-sa-ra. Tomorrow, freeform blade workouts. First with Cihkel and Joshel, then with your sister.”

Setteff rolled his eyes, but accepted his sentence without complaint, knowing any protests would only add to his discipline. They both knew their two older brothers would wear him out before he sparred with Daria, making him easy prey for her.

Daria grinned at Setteff. “Better get to bed early.”

Micfal’s attention shot to her. “You were lazy in the delt-tay, cutting your moves short. Tomorrow you will work that section through many times...with me.”

That wiped the grin off Daria’s face. She took a gulp of the sweat-reeking air, and then nodded her acquiescence. The most difficult section of the sword-dance, the delt-tay, took a burning toll on the leg muscles. She’d be as worn out as Setteff by the time they partnered up again.

She resisted an inward sigh. She had no one but herself to blame, she
had
eased up on the delt-tay, conserving her strength for the final buth-hay when she knew Setteff would start to falter.

In the long mirror lining one wall, Daria saw her brother make a face at her. She winked back, tossing her braid over her shoulder, then wiping the perspiration from her brow with her sleeve.

The door opened, and their father, Iceros, stepped through. The sun caught the emeralds in the gold coronet set on his blond head, haloing sparkles of green-and-yellow light around his reflection in the mirror. A kingly vision, indeed.

Iceros wore the jade-colored silk and velvet tunic and trews he’d donned to meet the delegation from his friend and ally, King Stevenes of neighboring Ocean’s Glory. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck, from which dangled a small case containing a collapsing telescope—the symbol of his kingship, and his most precious possession.

She started to call out a greeting, but something about her father’s expression stalled the words in her throat. Bleakness froze his austere features into lifeless stone. Under the neatly trimmed beard, he’d set his jaw, as if to hold back overwhelming emotion.

Fear charged Daria’s tired muscles with immediate energy. Her pulse skittered through her veins, and she clenched her hand around the hilt of the sword. She’d seen that look on her father’s face eighteen years ago when Indaran’s ship had been lost at sea. Then again a few months after when her mother, Iselda, made weak from grief, had succumbed to the firefever, and joined Indaran in the Hall of Yadarius.

Something happened to Cihkel or Joshel on their hunting expedition.

The thought numbed the rest of her mind. A few seconds passed before Daria checked. She still could othersense her brothers’ heartlines, strong and pulsing with life. Her shoulders relaxed.

Not her brothers. Then who?

Setteff beat her to the question. “Father, what’s wrong?”

Iceros moved toward them, his steps heavy. “I’ve received word from Ocean’s Glory. King Stevenes...my friend...my foster brother...has passed to the Hall of his Goddess, Besolet.”

Daria nearly sighed in relief. Stevenes was just a vague memory. Then guilt swept her.

Micfal bowed his head, the slump in his shoulders showing his age. The old weaponsmaster had mentored Stevenes when the young prince fostered at Seagem.

Setteff also looked stricken. Like the rest of her brothers, he’d spent months in Ocean’s Glory and was close to Stevenes and his son, Thaddis. But her father’s reaction stirred Daria’s deepest concern. His grief from the loss of his lifelong friend radiated through her othersense.

Iceros dropped a hand on Setteff’s shoulder.

Setteff placed his hand over his father’s, squeezing. “Ill news indeed. What happened?”

“The court physician thinks his heart gave out. A quick end, while he slept.”

Setteff bowed his head. “He will be missed.”

Iceros swallowed, lifting his bearded chin. His sorrowful gaze swept the three of them. “I’ve sent riders to recall your brothers from the hunt. Go, prepare. Tomorrow, we all leave for Ocean’s Glory.”

Deep within Daria’s othersense, protest stirred. How or what, she couldn’t name. The wrongness tornadoed up her chest and out her mouth. “No.”

The sadness in Iceros’s eyes changed to anger; a flush suffused his countenance. “No?”

Her stomach tightened with trepidation, and she tried to find diplomatic words to persuade her father to leave her behind. “I mean...I believe someone should remain here to govern Seagem. You and my brothers have the relationship with Stevenes and Thaddis. It is right you all go to honor him on his journey. I’m the logical one to leave behind.”

The glacial glint in Iceros’s eyes softened. “Your sense of duty to Seagem is admirable, my daughter.”

“I will take care of our people in your absence, Father. Besides...my othersense doesn't feel right about my going.”

He frowned. “Are you sure?”

Daria sank her awareness into her othersense, trying to block the intensity of her father’s emotions and strengthen her grip on the illusive sense of dread. But instead of solidifying, the intuition slipped away. She made another grab, but could only pick up nebulous impressions. Not for the first time, she wished for the training she would have received from her mother.

“Well?”

Daria shook her head, frustrated with her inability to put words to the warning.

“Then you will join us at the funeral. We will only be gone a few days, and the council can handle any problems.” The tone of his voice brooked no refusal.

“Yes, Father.” Daria bowed her head in acquiescence, but foreboding lingered in her heart.

~ ~ ~

Daria leaned over the side of the
Iselda
, the flagship of Seagem, watching the blue-green waves play over the shoals. Orange boatbirds danced on the warm air currents, dipping and gliding in an animated show. With joyous caws, they chased each other through the rigging of the billowing sails, their wing feathers sparkling against the background of the lavender sky.

Up on the king’s deck, her father and three brothers spoke with Micfal and the captain. Her family made a striking picture of manhood, their tall, strong bodies silhouetted against the sky. The royal party stood in all their finery, knowing the sail to the neighboring kingdom would take less than a day.

All the men wore emerald-velvet tunics and trews with paler silk shirts trimmed with gold lace. Yellow silk lined the velvet cloaks billowing behind them. Their long hair, confined by gold circlets around their foreheads, shaded from Joshel’s fire-red, to Setteff’s copper, to the blond of Iceros and her oldest brother, Cihkel.

The breeze blew a strand of hair across her eyes. Daria tucked it behind her ear with an impatient gesture. She could have stayed pristine in a cabin, but had elected to remain on deck, watching the vessel thread its way through the rocky girdle, protecting the peninsula of Seagem for generations.

She had given up trying to control her appearance. The wind teased tendrils from her tightly woven braids to curl around her face, toyed with the gold ribbons crisscrossing her pale-green silk bodice, belled her jade-colored velvet skirt, and fluttered her half-cloak.

Daria glanced behind her at the ragged protuberances dotting the water all the way to the land, except for the small circular harbor, dipping into the peninsula like a dent in the toe of an old boot. A sandy green beach tucked in a crescent to the right of the quay, her favorite walk at low tide.

Above the rocky cliffs, the city, built almost entirely of greenstone, loomed monotone against the lavender sky. The palace dominated the vista. A high central tower flew Yadarius’s banner. Balconies dotted the wide front. She could even pick out the one on the corner outside her sleeping room.

Only a league out to sea, and I miss my home already.

Yet duty called her to Ocean’s Glory. She shivered, feeling the dark quiver of her othersense.

To still her yearning to return to safety, she turned her back on the city and looked ahead to where Pilot’s Point sat a league or so farther out to sea. Their ancestors had built the enormous greenstone tower and dock, so the ancient story said, with the help of Yadarius. How else could the tower have withstood the pounding winter storms these many centuries?

The tower rose from the rocks at the beginning of the reef. Inside, a winch held an enormous chain, stretching across the only entrance to the shoals. The tower housed a force of Iceros’s guards and a rotating shift of pilots.

Joshel appeared at her side, his step so quiet she hadn’t heard his approach. His enticing smile could charm a chiten out of its spiral shell, and many ladies had happily followed the lure to his bed. The wind ruffled his shoulder-length, fire-colored hair. His narrow face stilled, and his normally dreamy eyes focused with concern. “Why so pensive, sister mine?”

Daria made a quick decision. Joshel, the brother most attuned to her, wouldn’t tease her for her fears. “My othersense tells me...this journey is wrong.”

“How could that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not going w
ould be unforgivable. Our absence would offend Thaddis.”

Like a cord plucked from a duraharp, her othersense thrummed. “Tell me more about him.”

“Thaddis is a good man, as close to Indaran as Father was to Stevenes. He refused to accept Indaran’s death. Thaddis even made a voyage to try to find him. Afterwards, he withdrew…changed.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“When I fostered there, I didn’t see him too often. Didn’t really get to know him. Rides well. Hunts. Women fall for him.” He slanted a grin at her.

She raised her chin, but didn’t grace his unspoken challenge with a reply.

“He’s even scholarly. Not into poetry though.”

Daria wrinkled her nose at her brother. Joshel fancied himself a poet, and every time he fell in love, wrote pages of poems, mostly drivel, but here and there a few good ones.

He jerked his head toward the others on the king’s deck. “Come, join us.”

“I will in a few minutes.”

Joshel brushed a finger over the back of her hand and up her wrist, a gesture he’d started when she was tiny when he wanted to express understanding. Then he turned and walked back to the king’s deck.

Daria leaned over the railing, stacking her fists on the polished ironwood and resting her chin atop them. Gazing over the water and inhaling the briny scent of the air, she allowed her vision to blur, hoping the new information about Thaddis made a difference. But her othersense recoiled. No change.

We shouldn’t be traveling to Ocean’s Glory.

~ ~ ~

USA Today Bestselling author, Debra Holland, is a psychotherapist and corporate crisis/grief counselor, who lives in Southern California with her dog and two cats.

Debra writes the bestselling Montana Sky Series—sweet historical Western romance, as well as fantasy romance and science fiction. Debra also writes nonfiction. Her book,
The Essential Guide to Grief and Grieving
, published by Alpha Books is available in print and ebooks. Look for her other fiction and nonfiction books online. You can download her free ebooklet: 58 Tips For Getting What You Want From a Difficult Conversation on her website:
http://drdebraholland.com
.