The Guardian Prince, page 15
At last all the pieces were placed, each on a square of corresponding color with the king in the center.
“The goal of the game is to capture the king if you are playing green and to defend him if you’re playing purple. Each piece can move horizontally or vertically but not diagonally. The king can move only up to three squares at a time, but all other pieces can cross any number of squares as long as they are empty. Only the king can move onto or through the center square, called the throne.”
Sabine nodded, committing Aodhan’s words to memory. The prince described the capture of pieces next, then how victory was achieved for each side.
“It seems simple enough,” Sabine said once he finished.
Aodhan nodded. “The challenge lies in the strategy. Let’s walk through a couple of games so you can get a feel for it.”
They played for a long time, Aodhan teaching strategies to Sabine while Diera interjected the occasional pointer or advice. Although Sabine wondered more than once how knowing this game could possibly assist in her interaction with the Aethel, she had to admit it was not an unpleasant way to spend a watch.
When the watch changed, a knock sounded on Aodhan’s door. A moment later Kyar entered. Aodhan mentioned to the ladies that he and Kyar had planned to dine together, and Kyar said he didn’t mind if Diera and Sabine joined them. Sabine’s initial inclination to decline was overruled by the faint color that sprang into Diera’s cheeks and the sudden vivacity that electrified the princess’s personality. It was clear the princess wanted to stay, so Sabine tried to suppress the nervousness that so often overcame her when in Kyar’s quiet, assessing presence.
The conversation felt a bit strained at first, but that changed quickly. Looking to fill a silence that had stretched a bit too long, Sabine asked how Aodhan and Kyar had met. Aodhan’s reply was occasionally amended, then completely taken over, by Kyar, who insisted Aodhan was telling the story incorrectly. Soon the two were exchanging jests and jokes at such a rate that Diera and Sabine could hardly speak for laughing.
It was, Sabine reflected as she walked with Diera to the Great Hall afterward, probably the best meal she had ever experienced. The constant animosity between Sabine’s parents and between Sabine and her sister had made family meals infrequent occurrences of silent hostility. Once she and her father had moved to the edge of the woods, their meals had all been overshadowed by Rhyon’s illness. In contrast, the easy comradery that existed among the three Aethel fascinated Sabine, and the undeniable attraction Diera and Kyar appeared to share left Sabine dumbstruck. Never had she seen two people so obviously delighted in each other.
I wonder if my parents ever experienced that, Sabine mused as she and Diera approached the dais where the Queen sat. For her father’s sake she hoped they had, for a little while, at least.
Unwilling to let the past overcome her pleasant mood, Sabine shifted her focus fully to her current circumstances. She curtsied to the queen, acknowledging the royal’s sovereignty without interrupting the dignitary who currently spoke. Murmuring a goodbye to Diera, she excused herself and made her way back out of the Great Hall. As she went, she glanced toward the silver-and-blue banner of a ship cresting waves. To her surprise, she was almost relieved to find that no one was there. One frosty glare from Lord Maeron would have certainly ruined her mood, darkening a promising start to what looked to be a pleasant afternoon.
Tayte waited for her outside the library. Sabine smiled when she saw him and quickened her pace.
“You seem rather pleased,” he said as he opened one of the double doors.
“I get to spend a whole watch surrounded by books,” Sabine retorted, following him over the threshold. “What’s not to be pleased about?”
Tayte scowled playfully. “If your definition of excitement is a room full of books, then you need to get out more.”
“For the first time in my life, I get to read without worrying if I’ll be discovered,” Sabine started but stopped as she beheld the sight before her.
She stood in a large, open seating area. Plush couches, overstuffed chairs, and writing tables filled the space, arranged in such a way that a person could visit with friends, read alone, or study as she desired. Across the space a metal railing marked where the floor ended and open air began. Long rows of shelves crammed with book rose to the ceiling, flanking the right and left sides of the area and set far enough away from the railing to allow a comfortably wide space for walking.
Sabine could have stayed here, wandering among the books all day, but Tayte crossed the furnished area to stand at the railing, so she followed.
Beyond the railing, the library opened to a vast but narrow expanse. One floor below them, two rows of tables set close to each other ran the length of the floor, each with a small glowing orb hovering at shoulder height above the left corner. One floor above a glass ceiling allowed sunlight to stream into the center of the room, illuminating the tables below. All three floors were filled floor to ceiling with rows and rows of books.
“Where do we begin?” Sabine murmured.
“Not too far from here, actually.” Tayte’s reply was equally hushed, muted by the reverence the room commanded. “Follow me.”
He led her to another seating area a fourth of the way around the room, still on the second floor but half-way down the room’s length.
“The old stories are here,” he said as he entered between two of the rows. Choosing a book, he carried it to a writing table, then took a chair from another table so that the two of them could sit beside each other and view the book simultaneously.
Sabine glanced at the symbols that ran across the page he turned to. “I can’t read that.”
Tayte shook his head. “Not yet. You’re just going to follow along while I read to you. After we’ve gone through and discussed a few stories, I’ll give you a list of words to memorize. If all goes as planned, you’ll be reading on your own in no time.”
“And this is supposed to help us find the godstone?” Sabine eyed the book skeptically. “How?”
“By allowing us to compare your father’s tales with these. We will look for any he told you that are not here. If his stories are all here, then we will compare them, looking for ways his differ. Hopefully those differences will be the clues we’re looking for.”
The doubt she felt must have been clear in her expression, because Tayte sighed.
“It’s not a perfect system,” he conceded.
“I’m just worried,” Sabine began, then paused. “I mean, do we have this kind of time? I thought the Rüddan are looking for the godstone, too.”
“They are.” Tayte ran his fingers over the open book. “But they don’t have you, so that gives us a bit of an advantage.”
But they do have my sister, Sabine thought, trying to keep any trace of the realization from showing on her face. And she knows a lot of my father’s stories, too.
Swallowing the sense of desperate urgency that fluttered in her chest, Sabine glanced at the book again. “Then we had better get to work.”
Tayte nodded and turned a few pages. “We’ll go book by book to keep track of where we’ve been. If you don’t know the story, we will finish it any way in case any detail sparks some kind of insight.”
Pulling out a chair for Sabine, Tayte sat in the one beside it. He pointed to the first line as she settled in to listen. Running his finger beneath the lines on the page, he pointed to the runes as he read them. Sabine followed along but could not ignore the sense of panic sprouting in her chest. This was going to take such a long time!
When they stopped for the day, they were no closer to finding the godstone than when they had begun. Still, Sabine accepted Tayte’s list of words and began memorizing them as she went to find Koen.
Chapter Thirteen
For the next sennite, Sabine’s days flowed to the unbroken rhythm of mornings with Diera, stories with Tayte, and magic lessons with Koen. Sabine began to dread the watches spent with Koen—not because of the Dryht himself but because of the tension that now existed between them. Each session was a new experience in futility in which Sabine tried to tap into Torian’s power and failed. She and Koen were both so frustrated that they often ended up snapping at each other, which greatly disturbed Bree and Gaoth.
“Perhaps we should take a break,” Koen suggested on the last day of the sennite. They had just walked through the city, as had become their habit, and now stood in the outer courtyard.
Sabine looked up from the fountain, which she had been staring into so she wouldn’t make eye contact with the Dryht. She hoped her relief didn’t show in her expression. “That’s probably a great idea.”
She turned her attention to Gaoth and Bree. The dog lay nearby, the raven walking along her back and preening her fur. Sabine watched them, her stomach sour and her heart heavy. As he did every day, Koen had tried to help her access Torian’s power but maintained that nothing would happen until she dealt with her past. As she had done every day, Sabine contended that there was nothing to deal with. Today, however, she had insisted a bit more forcefully than intended, and the Dryht seemed genuinely offended. She knew she should apologize, but the shame she felt for her behavior kept her silent. Finally, though, she worked up the courage to say, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so.”
Surprised, Sabine snapped her attention to the Dryht, making eye contact for the first time in days.
“You cannot unlock a door without a key,” Koen said, “and the particular door in this metaphor cannot be picked, destroyed, or bypassed in any other way. You must have the key, or you cannot pass through.”
Swallowing to ease her dry throat, Sabine bit back a reply. Normally she would have answered with a joke about Koen’s ambiguity. Today, however, the moment was too grave.
“The event in your past that you’re clinging to,” Koen continued, his tone genuinely compassionate, “that event is the key. Once you’ve dealt with it, come find me. I’ll be here.”
Sabine stared at the Dryht, at a loss for words, until he turned and walked away. He motioned to Gaoth as he went. The bird cawed once, then hopped off of Bree and flew to Koen’s shoulder. Still dumbfounded, Sabine could only watch them go as they disappeared through the inner gate.
She stood there for some while, looking after them as if they might return, until a rider appeared. She noted the rider was Gaelan and realized absently that he must finally be returning from Eddonwe. He seemed startled to find her in the courtyard but waved a greeting as he dismounted and handed his horse over to a groom. She waved back as he crossed the courtyard, but they did not speak. A moment later he entered the guard’s office and was gone.
Sabine roused herself. Glancing to Bree, she said, “I supposed there’s no sense in wasting the rest of the watch. Would you like to go to my room and study?”
Bree thumped her tail against the ground in agreement, so that’s what they did. Sabine’s efforts to memorize today’s list from Tayte were fruitless, however. She kept thinking about Koen’s words. She had thought she was at peace with her past, but ever since Koen started pressuring her about it, she wondered if that were true. The more she considered it, the more she realized she still harbored a lot of pain. But what could she do? Revisiting the memories of her mother’s treatment of her and of Kenrick’s betrayal hurt too much. Besides, what could she gain by dwelling on the past? Both situations were beyond her now. It was better just to let them go.
Agitated by these thoughts, Sabine put her memorization aside. Leaving Bree in her room, Sabine wandered to the library. She half-hoped she would find something there that she could read, some tome written in the Human tongue rather than in Aethelian, but she knew that she wouldn’t. Mostly, the visit was just an excuse to convince herself that she was using her time wisely.
It didn’t take long to confirm her suspicion. Convinced the entire library lacked even a single book she could read on her own, Sabine decided to explore the rest of the room instead. She found two more sets of doors on the second floor, one a quarter of the way around the room, opposite the side that bordered the Great Hall, and one halfway around. All three sets, she discovered, were mirrored on the first and third floors, as well, for a total of nine different entrances. Curious to know where they led, Sabine picked the first set to the right of the main entrance on the second floor and began exploring.
This particular doorway led to a long hallway of closed doors. The ever-present glowing orbs flicked to life as Sabine passed by, filling the corridors with puddles of bright, yellow-tinged light. Each door Sabine tried was locked, but this hall resembled the one above it where unused guestrooms were reserved for visiting nobles, so Sabine felt reasonably sure she knew where she was.
A growl in her stomach told her it was time to go find supper, then take Bree out one last time before bedding down for the night. If she was right about her location, she would find a stairway at the end of the hall, which, when she followed it down, led right to the kitchens.
Sabine was almost to the end of the hall when she noticed the orbs were not igniting as she approached. The ones near the stairwell already shined, indicating someone had recently passed this way. Sabine found that curious, since Tayte had told her a sennite ago that this wing was currently unused. However, she was close to the stairs now, so it made sense that whoever had passed by was, most likely, a housekeeper peeking in to check on things.
Rounding the corner at the end of the hall, Sabine was so caught up in her thoughts that she almost didn’t see the two figures standing in a shadowed corner near the stairwell. Startled, she backtracked instantly, then chided herself for being so skittish. Even though she was a Human, she had as much right to be here as anyone else. Pushing her shoulders back and raising her chin, she began to proceed forward when another thought stopped her.
The two figures stood in the shadows in an unused part of the castle, and she had not heard their voices or anything else to let her know they were there. What if they were meeting secretly, with no desire to be discovered? Pressing herself against the wall, she peeked around the corner.
The two figures were deep in conversation and didn’t appear to have noticed her. At first the shadows made it hard to discern their features, but after a few moments, Sabine thought she could identify Amala’s golden hair. The Aethel woman stood with her back to Sabine, mostly obscuring the man she spoke with. However, based on the rich brown of his hair and the sky-blue-and-misty-white color scheme of his rather elegant clothes, Sabine surmised it was Maeron, the courtesan Sabine occasionally saw in the Great Hall.
Quietly, so as not to disturb them, Sabine pulled her head back. Although it surprised her to see Amala here, hadn’t Diera said that Lord Maeron sought Amala’s affections? Both Sabine and Amala were left to their own devices for the evening meal, so it was entirely possible for Lord Maeron to invite Amala to an unused part of the castle where he thought they wouldn’t be disturbed. Judging by the looks Amala frequently shot at Aodhan, Maeron didn’t stand a chance, but who was Sabine to interrupt his attempts to woo the Aethel woman?
No one, Sabine thought. Grinning smugly at the idea of leaving Amala to her eager suitor, Sabine retreated the way she had come, backtracking to the library in search of another route to the kitchen.
She was not halfway back to the double doors when she smelled the smoke. It was not a heavy scent—not like new wood burning in a clean fireplace. Rather, it smelled faintly like a campfire, redolent of charred wood and ashes.
Like the scent that is said to precede the Hannori. Sabine shuddered at the thought. According to her father’s stories, the actual physical manifestation of a servant of Nymhon looked like a shadow and smelled of something burning. If the Ayrhim were real, couldn’t the Hannori be real, too?
According to the stories, Sabine thought again, then groaned. The stories she was studying with Tayte must be winding up her imagination. What would a Hannori be doing here in a deserted corridor? Besides, all the doors were locked—she had checked most of them herself—and all of the glowing orbs had been dark, except for the ones Amala and Maeron must have triggered. There was no one here to summon a Hannori.
Convinced she had imagined the scent, Sabine continued down the hall. . .
. . .and almost slammed into Gaelan as he exited a nearby room, carrying an armful of thick candles.
Sabine nearly choked on a scream that stuck in her throat. Gaelan grunted and dropped a few candles, which Sabine helped him retrieve. They were still warm, as if they had been burned for a while and had just been extinguished. That explains the smoke smell.
“Human,” Gaelan grunted, accepting the candles from her. “What are you doing?”
“Exploring,” Sabine said before she could think of a better response. “I’m still learning my way around. What about you?”
Gaelan eyed Sabine, looking as if he weren’t going to answer, then grimaced and said, “Guard duty.”
Glancing at the candles, Sabine arched her eyebrows.
“It’s true.” Gaelan stood taller and positioned his feet in a battle stance. Speaking in a theatrical tone, he declared, “I, Gaelan, Lord of Eddonwe Keep and head of the Royal Guard, am embarked upon the most noble of all guard duties: rat patrol.”
“Rat patrol?” Sabine barely managed to contain her laughter. “With candles?”
“Ahh, you see, fair lady-in-waiting,” Gaelan retorted, his tone turning conspiratorial, “one must have light to see them by, and the rodents of this keep hate our glowing orbs. They hide from the harsh glare and will only venture out in complete dark or in the muted glow of a candle.”
Sabine assessed the Aethel captain, certain he was mocking her. “Is that so?”
Gaelan nodded. When he spoke again, his tone was back to normal. “It’s usually a punishment detail, but I lost a bet. A commanding officer is nothing if he is not a man of his word, so here I am.”
