The Shadow of Theron, page 25
“No.”
“Why not?!”
“I have a very strong feeling…that we mustn’t say anything to him.”
She wasn’t saying it right. It was more than a feeling. It was a command, one that thronged inside her head—deeper, it seemed—and set her whole body trembling.
Asha’s eyes went wide. “Then what in six hells are we doing here? If Argoss does rise, we’ll need him! And what about the task we were charged with?”
Eugenie’s eyes slid to the ground, to where Theron’s Child had stood just a moment before. The impression she had seen was still there, but it was faint, and stretched out after him in a thin, glimmering veil.
“He doesn’t know who he is,” she murmured. “And we mustn’t tell him.”
“Yes we damn well must!”
“No! It is not yet time!”
Eugenie’s strength was giving out; what the runes foretold crashed over her in tumultuous waves. The force of their telling was so overwhelming it threatened to bring her to her knees. Before she slumped to the ground in the middle of the road, Asha caught hold of her, and tried to steady her on her feet.
“Eugenie. Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been surer about anything in my entire life. We must not interfere. Elsewise we rush to our doom.”
Asha’s bracing arm tightened around Eugenie’s middle, and hauled her upright.
“Alright,” she whispered. “Alright. But we’ll watch him. The minute he needs us, or we need him…”
At Asha’s pronouncement, the storm in Eugenie’s mind began to subside. She slowly found her own balance again, the world no longer teetering toward calamity. She nodded.
“What did you do to him?” Asha asked.
Eugenie swallowed hard. “I’m not sure it will work.”
“What?”
“I opened his eyes.”
“Lysandro?”
He was still staring at his palm, pondering the pattern the woman had scrawled on it. Whatever thoughts crossed his mind, he brushed them off, curling his fingers inward and letting his hand drop to his side.
“Homesick?”
“What?” Sera asked.
“Are you homesick? It would be natural, on a day like today.”
“I suppose I am.” That wasn’t what was bothering her, but it would do.
“What can I do to cheer you up?”
Her mouth quirked up. “A drink would be nice.”
Lysandro smiled. “I still can’t imagine you drunk.”
“Oh, I’m pleasant.” Sera smiled back. This time, it was genuine. “I think I’ve lost the majority of my brain matter to this holiday.”
“That can’t be. You’re the most intelligent woman I know.”
The compliment rolled off him so easily, Sera knew he meant it. Her smile deepened.
“I used to be a genius,” she replied. “Now I’m just clever.”
He flashed another of his affectionate smiles, but then something over her shoulder caught his attention.
Lysandro pulled a broadsheet off the outer wall of a nearby building, and examined the edict. In crisp, tiny letters, Marek demanded any villager with information regarding the identity of the criminal known as the Shadow of Theron to step forward. Anyone who cooperated with his office would be compensated. The reward: one lyra.
“You’d think that if Marek was serious about apprehending the Shadow, he’d offer a serious incentive,” he said.
Sera could see the battle waging on his face. He didn’t know whether to be incensed or amused. She trod carefully.
“Why would he do that? Print up a notice, just to make an ass of himself?”
Lysandro’s eyebrows rose at her choice of words, and a boyish laugh escaped him.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a misprint.” A furtive grin played across his lips.
“It also implies that Lighurans’ loyalties can be bought,” Sera added.
Lysandro paused, the smile gone. “You’re right. He would think that.” The words came out so deep he was almost growling.
The notices were plastered over every wall and building. But they were hard to see under the swell of decorations celebrating Theron’s miraculous recovery on the eve of his triumph. If they hadn’t been mostly lost in the merrymaking, the sheer number of them would have cast a cloud of discontent over all of Lighura, misprint or no.
Lysandro crumpled the notice and shoved it deep into his pocket.
“Where is our illustrious magistrate today?” Sera asked, scanning the crowd subconsciously.
“Holed up in his office, I imagine. He doesn’t go to the temple. Why should he celebrate a temple holiday?”
That doesn’t mean he won’t start trouble, Sera thought.
Lysandro must have seen the worry in her eyes. “It’s alright,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her closer to his side. “I’m right here.”
Whichever side of him was talking to her, Lysandro or the Shadow, she felt comforted.
“Too many people for him to make a scene,” he reasoned. “He still cares about how he’s perceived. I don’t expect he’ll show his face outdoors at all, public sentiment being what it is. Plus he’ll have his hands full once the chief magistrate arrives, which I imagine will be very soon. Come on. Let’s enjoy the day.”
She did feel better, as they walked along. Lysandro had not released her fingers from his own, and she reveled in the tender little back-and-forth motion his thumb made across her skin, so smooth and reassuring that she was lulled into forgetting about Marek. She soaked in the joyful atmosphere of the village. The rest of Lighura was no doubt trying to do the same.
Sera’s hand separated from Lysandro’s only when they came upon a large tent displaying costumes for sale, and she stopped to inspect their craftsmanship.
“Come, come! Try on something beautiful. Or something daring!” The proprietress of the stall danced at the edge of the tent, beckoning them inside for a closer look. She was dressed in layer upon layer. Billowing white sleeves peeked through a tangerine vest of luxurious velvet. A slatted purple skirt that fell to her knees covered a longer robe beneath of sunshine yellow. Ankles clad in green stockings poked out from the hem and hid themselves in gilded slippers of deep fuchsia embroidered with golden thread.
The chestnut tendrils that cascaded from her head were obviously a wig, topped by a broad-brimmed hat of sapphire blue and trimmed with an oversized speckled feather.
It was a riot to Sera’s eyes. She didn’t know where to look, and turned her gaze away.
“No thank you,” she said.
“Walk in the shoes of a necromancer! Or a queen! Become a star in the night sky! The finest silks, the lushest colors!” The woman followed Sera from behind the table. She crossed the path of a crone dressed all in black, hunched over a garment in the back of the tent. The proprietress tripped over her as she pressed her wares into Sera’s hands.
“No, thank you,” Sera repeated.
The woman stepped beyond the front flap of the stall and called after them. “Fine, fine. I understand, you’re so wrapped up in your beau you don’t have eyes for anyone else, can’t even see who’s speaking to you.”
Sera stopped. She spun on her heels and eyed the woman again. She was still staring after them, standing halfway into the street.
“Sera?”
She didn’t hear Lysandro’s query. Her heart was pounding too loudly in her ears as she retraced her steps, and stared the woman straight in the eye.
She knew those eyes.
A grin curled at the corner of her mouth, and she entered the tent, coming to stand behind the woman shrouded in black. Only her hands were visible as she worked on the embroidered cloak in her lap, her face completely covered by a voluminous hood.
Watching from the edge of the tent, Lysandro cried out as Sera did the unthinkable.
“Get up, old woman!” she shouted in Mirênese, and kicked the crone in the rump, knocking her forward.
The woman uncovered her face, exposing a scowl.
“Old woman?!”
“Oh Maman! I thought you were—”
Sera’s face drained of all its color as she realized her mistake, and reached out to help the woman who’d done more than anyone else to raise her. As she did, a man in a billowing dress with a wreath of flowers atop his head snuck up from behind.
“You kicked my nursemaid?”
Sera screamed at the sudden voice at her back, then jumped into the man’s arms. He lifted her off the ground and spun her, consumed by laughter.
“Sera, Sera, Sera!”
“What are you doing here?” she cried at last.
“What do you think?” Fabien put her down and took her cheeks in his hands. “You should have come to me. I never would have let you go! Never! You know that, don’t you?”
Sera nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. They embraced again. The vibrantly dressed woman, who was not a woman at all, stripped off his excess clothing to reveal a slender, well-muscled man with blond waves that came just to his chin.
“I almost had to run after you,” he said, wrapping his arms around Sera and Fabien both.
She looked up and stroked his cheek in greeting. “Pirró.”
“Good to see you, girl.”
“Not so good for me,” the doge’s maid said, struggling to her feet and brushing herself off.
“I’m so sorry Maman,” Sera called out.
“I thought I wanted to see you again, but now…” she approached Sera, and cupped her face in her hands. Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes. “Now my heart is full of joy.”
They laughed, and the trio formed a tight ring around Seraphine.
At last, she was home.
Lysandro’s mood turned black. The way the stranger put his mouth to Sera’s like it was nothing turned his guts to ash. He didn’t know which of the men squeezing her was the doge of Mirêne, and which was the king, and it didn’t much matter. He was going to kill them both.
Sera finally remembered that he existed, left standing mute in the middle of the road and wallowing in his own agony.
“Lysandro! Lysandro come here!” She broke from the pack and reached her hand out to him.
He had half a mind to sling her up over his shoulder and run far far away. Before he could, the man with dark curls that framed his face, the one who’d kissed Seraphine, clasped him tightly with both hands, trapping him by his forearm and shoulder with an exuberant smile on his face.
“Hello! Happy Faelsday! You must be Don Lysandro de Castel. I’m so pleased to finally meet you. Sera’s told me such great things.”
She has?
Lysandro shuttered the thought, not allowing himself to hope.
“This is Fabien, Doge of Mirêne,” Sera said, grinning. She didn’t seem phased in the slightest by what had passed between her and the doge seconds before. It had only been for a fraction of a moment, but even that had felt painfully long to Lysandro’s heart. Long enough to remind him that she was never meant to be here. Never wanted to be here.
“Fabien, please,” the doge insisted, oblivious to Lysandro’s turmoil. He gestured to the blond man. “This is Pirró.”
The man wrapped his arm around the doge’s waist in a way Lysandro had never seen a man do to another man. His eyes narrowed.
Pirró said something Lysandro didn’t understand.
“In Andran, please,” Sera said.
“Cheh?”
Fabien smacked the back of his hand against Pirró’s chest. “Because it’s rude.”
“Oh. I see.” Pirró turned a devilish grin toward Lysandro. “Sera has told us so much about you. Shall I read?” He snatched a well-leafed letter from the folds of Fabien’s dress and held it up to the sunlight.
Sera’s face turned ghostly white.
“It’s quite poetic, really. In Andran, let’s see…his hair—”
Fabien ripped the pages from his hands and held them at arm’s length as Pirró reached for them. They argued in their own tongue, but Fabien was taller, and his words shaper. Pirró relented.
Beside him, Sera exhaled in relief.
“Sorry about that,” Fabien said. “He’s just cranky. It was a long journey, and he was sick most of the way.” He turned to Pirró, who grimaced. “He’s promised he’ll behave. I hope you will still join us for lunch.”
Lysandro was forced to concede the day to the doge. “Go on then,” he said to Sera. “Have fun.”
She looked at him as if he’d said the oddest thing in the world.
“It’s alright. You haven’t seen them in—”
“I’m not going without you.”
His heart gave a little flutter. Her smile was warm and reassuring. And real. He drank it in.
“Excellent! Hold the fort, Maman!” Fabien cried.
She grumbled in reply.
“Lead the way,” Fabien said to Lysandro. He wrapped his arms around Pirró’s shoulders as they fell in line behind Sera and Lysandro.
Again, the gesture seemed out of place. Lysandro had expected the doge to shed his costume, the dress and wreath, as the other man had done before departing. He didn’t.
Sera stretched up to him to whisper in his ear. “I told you…Fabien can’t marry the one he loves.”
His eyes darted to her and she returned a knowing look.
“Oh.”
The doge’s kiss had been no more than a greeting between friends. Lysandro still hated the man for offering Sera a convenient, loveless marriage, and for making her believe that was the best she could hope for. Never mind that, in her eyes, he was guilty of the same.
Still, one thing kept repeating.
“My hair is poetic?” he asked.
Sera’s cheeks turned a bright red, and her gaze dropped from him.
“I can’t recall…” she murmured.
“I see. You don’t mind, then, if I cut it all off?”
She took in a sharp breath, then shrugged. “It’s your hair. I’ll never talk to you again, but—” she lifted her face to his, and a smile flashed across her eyes. “Do what you like.”
Lysandro’s heart set off at a mad gallop. Never before had she given any sign that she found him attractive. But the heat in her face told all. Before the doge had snatched it away, Lysandro had seen many pages in the letter Sera had written him. He had the strongest desire to tackle the doge to get his hands on them, to devour her words. Anything to know he held her favor. There was genuine affection in her touch. When she reached for his fingers and threaded them with her own in full view of Fabien, he had all he ever wanted.
Sera’s mouth dropped open as they entered the tavern. The place was bursting with members of the doge’s court. They all cheered and tipped their glasses at her arrival.
Fabien smiled wryly. “As you see, I’ve brought a few familiar faces with me. We discovered this absolutely charming tavern on our way into town.”He called a barmaid over and ordered a first round and a veritable feast—a boiled chicken, stewed lamb, creamed potatoes, a bowl of cherries, and a whole tray of mincemeat pies.
“And bread,” Fabien called after the maid. “Bring lots and lots of bread.”
“Is that the trick, then?” Lysandro said to Sera.
“Got to soak up all that liquor with something.”
Foaming mugs of ale were served, but before Sera could bring hers to her lips, Fabien reached across the table and put his hand over the mouth of her glass.
“Did you forget what day it is?” He produced a bottle of liquid as dark as glowing embers from the hidden folds of his dress.
“Oh Goddess, please no—”
“Shame on you! What’s Faelsday without a little fire water?”
Sera groaned as Fabien passed her the vial. Even the small swig she took produced tears in her eyes. She gagged and passed it to Pirró, who did the same and then passed it back to Fabien. After his own swallow, he shook the remainder of the contents at Lysandro.
“What do you say, Don Lysandro? Care to celebrate like a true Mirênese?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Sera said. “You’ll regret it.”
“I’ll have what she’s having.”
Fabien voiced his pleasure in his own language and handed the vial to Lysandro.
It was as potent as its name and reputation suggested, and burned all the way down his throat, like he had consumed the spit of dragons.
Sera coughed. “Oh, I hate that stuff.”
“You have been gone too long. Have another!”
“Oh no. No,” she insisted when he tried to foist another swallow upon her.
“You’re lost to me already, aren’t you?” Fabien asked.
“If that means I’m sober more often than not, then yes.”
Fabien mocked a frown. “Alright. I’m off to the little girls’ room.”
Pirró moved the bowl of cherries closer to himself and began to graze.
Sera leaned in. “How is he?” she asked as Fabien crossed to the other side of the tavern.
Pirró spoke between bites. “He and His Royal Highness are not talking to each other. He broke the king’s nose.”
Sera tilted her head from side to side. “It did need a bit of adjustment.” She said it coolly and without malice.
Pirró’s eye’s crinkled. “How did you get so witty?”
She batted her eyes at him. “I had a good teacher. I’m surprised he let you come.”
“Uh-huh.” Pirró tore off a piece of bread from the loaf with his teeth.
Sera took in his words and looked around. Fabien had brought his entire court with him.
“Oh, boy.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? Fabien wasn’t asking.” His eyes darted between Sera and Lysandro. “He wants you to come back with us. You know that, right?”
Sera fell silent.
For Lysandro, that silence was filled with great hope.
Pirró took the hint. “Anyway, he’s been obsessed with the drawing you sent him of the fourth panel. He’s had a sketch done up of all the images together except the first. He’s more determined than ever to find it, but—”
“Hey.”
Pirró stopped and took a breath.
“I’m sorry you got caught in the middle,” Sera said.
