Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (56 page)

Demulier stepped forward and joined Ustus,
who seemed to shrink in her presence. As much authority as Ustus
conveyed, Demulier clearly had more. “The power our great king
brings is the power of Ahkidibis.”

A dark silence descended around the
table.

Advisor Balgair said, “You dare speak that
name here, woman?”

“Hold your tongue,” Queen Catherina said
with a deep frown.

“My lady,” said a frightened Balgair, “to
speak the god’s name so freely is to invite his wicked presence
into—”

“I said silence!” she shouted.

Demulier looked disappointed as she shook
her head. “‘His wicked presence,’” she repeated. “Those who fear
the power of the God of Fire do not know what they should fear. It
is that fear, Balgair, that taints his legend. Ahkidibis offers
only truth, wrapped in the fury of a thousand ages. He is to be
pitied, not feared. Loved, not hated. He rewards those who serve
him, like High King Orkrash Mahl.”

“The high king bows to the God of Fire?”
Balgair asked. He seemed surprised, though no one else did.

“Hence his power,” Demulier said. She moved
along the side of the table with a devilish sway. “Hence his
wealth. Ahkidibis is not the monster so many fear him to be. He
wants a place on Edhen, and in exchange he is willing to grant us
much, but he requires loyalty.” She trailed her fingers along the
back of Prince Taggart’s neck. “Faithfulness. A pledge of
unwavering allegiance.”

Balgair looked stunned. “If you’re asking
the leaders of Tay to bow fully to the God of Fire—”

“Will you shut up, fool?” Catherina moaned,
rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Your protests are starting to give
me a headache.”

“Mother, let him speak,” Tristian said.

Emboldened, Balgair turned to the king. “My
lord, this requires careful thought. Whomever the high king chooses
to bow to is his decision, but to require us to bow with him is the
antithesis of freedom. It goes against everything the great High
King Vala Hull fought to give this land.”

“Vala Hull?” Demulier said.

“He was a tyrant,” Catherina spat.

“And yet thanks to him this realm exists
today,” Tristian said.

Catherina turned to her son in shock. “Are
you agreeing with Balgair?”

“I neither agree nor disagree with anyone,”
the prince answered. “I think this whole conversation is
pointless.”

“You consider the will of your high king
pointless?” said Ustus. His expression was cold, his eyes like
knives as his gaze bore down upon Tristian.

“If it is the high king’s will that we bow
to his god then all this discussion is rather moot, don’t you
think?” Tristian said. “What is the alternative? Death? Let’s bow
and be done with it.”

Balgair lifted his hand. “We must think
about this before—”

“We
have
thought about this,” Dagart
said, cutting off his advisor. “This is why the high king has sent
his emissaries to us, to hear our pledge of loyalty to him and to
his god. As much as I hate to admit it, my cripple of a son is
correct.”

Balgair scoffed. “This is madness.”

“Nevertheless,” Dagart said, rising from his
seat, “it is your king’s wish that all of Tay follow the god of the
high king.”

Demulier glided over to Dagart and ran her
hand across his shoulders. “As your loyalty grows, so will his
strength. As his strength grows, his generals will rise. And you
will be first among his chosen.”

“Generals?” Balgair said. “Not the
Adarc?”

Demulier smirked.

“My lord, the Adarc are demons from ancient
times. We cannot—”

Catherina slammed her palm on the table.
“For the last time, you will shut your tongue or I will remove it
from your mouth!”

Balgair jumped to his feet, his chair
scraping along the stone. “I will not stand by and let this kingdom
fall to ruin because of the desperate hopes of an ignorant
few.”

“How dare you speak to your king like that?”
Catherina said with a gasp.

“My apologies, my lady,” Balgair said. “My
job is to advise the spiritual and moral direction of our kingdom,
and Tay has been backsliding for years. I cannot stand by and allow
this to come to pass.”

“Then you can remove yourself from this
council,” Dagart said.

Balgair looked offended. “My lord, I—”

“Your king gave you an order,” Catherina
hissed.

“Technically it wasn’t an order, mother,”
Tristian said.

“And you can go with him, insolent twit,”
she said.

“My son stays,” Dagart said. “If the Elles
are to swear to the God of Fire, then they all must swear.”

Balgair looked around the table, his eyes
lingering on Advisor Dolmhart who had yet to say anything. The man
stroked the pointy tuft of hair on the end of his chin as though in
deep thought. After a moment, Balgair left the room.

Demulier walked to one of the lanterns and
removed it from the wall. She extinguished its flame and then
smashed the glass jar of oil onto the table. Pressing her palm into
the oil she uttered a series of strange sounding words unlike any
language Scarlett had ever heard before. When she lifted her oil
slicked hand, she blew on it and a small flame erupted in her
palm.

She extended her hand to Dagart. “Swear to
him,” she said. “Swear to your high king and to the God of Fire
whom he serves.”

Dagart took the woman’s hand, wincing at the
bite of flame. “I swear.”

She walked to Catherina and extended her
hand. “Swear to him, your high king and to his god.”

The queen took Demulier’s hand and shook it.
“I swear.”

And so it went around the table—Taggart,
Dolmhart, and Arrahbella, their hands sealing their commitments in
a blink of flame.

When Demulier came to Tristian, Scarlett
held her breath, wishing she could shout out to him to stop.

“Do you swear to Ahkidibis?” Demulier
asked.

Ahkidibis. The God of Fire. Everything
Scarlett had ever heard about the deity was monstrous. She couldn’t
let Tristian pledge allegiance to such a being.

She grabbed onto the metal grate, hoping to
rattle it to get Tristian’s attention, but the metal was bolted
tight to the wall.

Tristian took the woman’s flaming hand.

Scarlett felt her heart sink as she watched
him give it a single shake up and down.

“I have the strangest feeling we’ve met
before,” Demulier said as she looked deep into Tristian’s eyes.

He shrugged. “I doubt it. I could not easily
forget a woman of your beauty.”

She smiled and let him go, extinguishing the
tiny flame in the palm of her hand with a sultry puff of her
lips.

“The high king expresses his thanks to all
of you,” Ustus said. “He asks now for your patience. The road ahead
will be long and fraught with many obstacles. War is coming to
Edhen, and he will need loyal supporters.”

Dagart dipped his head. “High King Orkrash
Mahl can count on Tay, its resources and its people.”

When the meeting adjourned, Scarlett took
advantage of the scraping chairs and bustle of bodies to mask her
movements back through the vent. She climbed out of the hole into
the hallway, returned the stool to the broom cupboard, and ran back
down the corridors leading to the State Hall.

She wheeled around a corner to see Demulier
and Ustus in the midst of a hushed discussion. The sight startled
her. She jumped back and hid around the corner, winded from her
run. Slowly, carefully, she ventured a peek around the bend.

Demulier look agitated. She paced in front
of Ustus in her long black gown, one hand pressed against her
forehead.

“It’s him,” she said, trying to keep her
voice low.

“The cripple?” Ustus said.

“He is the one, I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“When I touched him, his soul reeked with
the memories of his ancestors.”

Ustus crossed his arms and touched his chin
in thought. “But you did not get this feeling when you touched his
brother, or the king?”

“The link to one’s ancestral line is not
always strong,” Demulier said, “but in Prince Tristian it thrives.
I’m telling you, he is the one we need to—”

Ustus held up his hand. “All right. All
right.” He looked down the hallway, first away from Scarlett, then
toward her. Just as his head swiveled in her direction she ducked
back behind the corner.

She heard them whispering before their
footsteps retreated away.

After a few calming breaths Scarlett pursued
them back to the State Hall.

The entertainers had left the stage and were
now mingling with the crowd, doing sleight-of-hand tricks and
telling jokes. The main stage had been taken over by a woman with a
large harp, strumming away and humming as the guests indulged in
wine and the large number of prostitutes now mingling with the
crowd.

Scarlett looked around for Tristian,
desperate to tell him what she had just overheard. But what had she
overhead? In her mind, she couldn’t make sense of it. Demulier
sounded obsessed with Prince Tristian, rambling on about the
memories of his ancestors, not to mention her talk of gods and the
high king, which made no sense.

She looked left, then right, searching for
signs of Tristian’s lumbering frame. She wheeled around, bumping
headlong into the hip of Princess Arrahbella.

“Oh, my dear, are you all right?” the
princess asked.

Scarlett nodded.

Arrahbella stepped back, her brows crinkling
as she looked at Scarlett’s dress. “My, my. What have we been up
to?”

Scarlett realized with horror that her
beautiful purple dress was smeared with dirt and dust from the
narrow vent. She should’ve known that crawling around in the
arteries of the castle would leave her filthy.

“Maybe you should go clean yourself up,”
suggested Arrahbella. “It’s getting late, and besides this party is
becoming hardly a place for a young girl.”

“Quite right,” said the queen. She wandered
up behind Scarlett. Her eyes glanced up and down her filthy dress
in disgust. “What in the nine kingdoms have you been up to,
child?”

Scarlett mimed the first thing that came to
her mind: a monkey. She puffed out her cheeks, scratched her
armpits, and wobbled from foot to foot, knowing that such an
unladylike display would rile the queen’s temper. It might mean a
slap to the face, but it would at least stop her from asking
questions.

“Ghastly!” Catherina exclaimed. “Off to your
room at once!”

Scarlett hung her head in mock sorrow and
walked off.

“And not to the west wing,” Catherina said.
“Aamor!” She snapped her fingers, and a moment later the young
maidservant appeared next to her. She was sweating and out of
breath, a pile of dirty plates in her hands. “You are to move this
child’s belongings to the servants’ dormitories at once.”

Aamor looked confused. “My lady, Prince
Tristian told me to give her a room in the west wing with—”

“Did Tristian recently become king of Tay?”
Catherina asked.

“No, my—”

“Do his orders supersede my own?”

“No, my—”

“Then what part of what I have ordered you
to do remains unclear? Take this child to the servant chambers at
once. She isn’t large. Give her the smallest room.”

“That would be my room, my lady.”

Catherina pressed a hand to her heart and
gasped. “What a marvelous idea. Thank you, Aamor.”

The maid scrunched her brows. “My lady?”

“You two can be sisters and share a room
together and giggle over silly dreams and sew patches into your
filthy clothes.”

Aamor dipped her head. “Yes, my lady.”

She set the stack of dishes on a nearby
table and took Scarlett by the hand. Together they left the State
Hall.

Aamor said nothing as they walked to the
rear wing of the castle, descended to the lowest level, to the
damp, dark passageway where the servants resided in cramped
quarters.

Scarlett wondered if the young woman was
still upset at her about trying to join her hand with
Tristian’s.

Aamor pushed hard against a stubborn door
that scraped and groaned as it opened, revealing a small room with
a bed, a wooden chest, and a small table. Aamor went inside and lit
a few candles. She then went about picking up a few loose garments
laying on the floor.

Scarlett stood in the doorway, somewhat
afraid to enter. She didn’t quite feel welcome in Aamor’s room,
but, then again, she had never felt very welcome in Tay. She had
been brought here to be the butt of a joke, and found herself
unwanted all over again once the punch line had played itself out.
There was no place for her in Tay, apart from her friendship with
Tristian, and even that appeared to be coming to an end.

Aamor noticed her standing hesitant under
the lintel. The young woman sighed as she sat down on the bed and
patted the mattress next to her. Scarlett entered and sat down.

“I’m sorry,” Aamor said. She set a hand on
Scarlett’s back and gave it a rub. “I shouldn’t be mad at you. It
just doesn’t seem fair. With every passing day it seems the wealthy
get more and more, and we get less and less.”

Scarlett thought for a moment, then pulled
out her blackboard and wrote:
We have each other
.

Aamor dropped a kiss atop her head. “Yes, I
suppose that’s true.”

“Another flawless performance, Emma,” said
Mistress Rose as she sat crossed legged at the breakfast table.
“You’re surpassing my expectations, which doesn’t happen very
often.”

Brynlee stepped back and bowed her head.
“Thank you, mistress.”

She wiped her sweaty palms on the front
folds of her yellow linen dress and surveyed her handiwork. She had
set the table perfectly, with spoons, forks, and knives in careful
order. The tea had been poured without spilling a drop, the
biscuits served and buttered in a clean manner, and the apples
sliced and laid out in a balanced pattern. The setting looked
pleasing dappled by the sunlight floating in through the window’s
latticework.