Морган Райс
A Throne for Sisters
The next book didn’t seem much better. It was a slim, strange volume, which seemed to be half sword manual, half fantastical account of the life of a swordsman named Argent. It had seemed promising at first, because his work claimed that he came from Ashton, but there were fragments that seemed like pure fiction. There was even a section claiming that he had started life as a skillful but weak swordsman, but had gained strength by going to a woodland glade south of the city and cheating the spirits he found at a fountain there. It came complete with a map, claiming to show the spot he’d gone to and pointing to signs that led there: a way marker, a set of stone steps, and more. Kate sighed and put the book down harder than she probably should have.
“Careful, Kate,” Geoffrey warned her. “You know better than to damage books others might want to read.”
“I can’t see anyone wanting to read this,” Kate shot back. “Swordsmen who get their strength from magic fountains? Unbeatable blade masters who appear out of nowhere? It’s nonsense.”
She saw Geoffrey glance down at the book. “That’s Argent’s story, isn’t it? Yes… yes, you’re right… you should ignore it.”
I don’t want her to end up like he did. It’s better if she thinks it’s a fable.
“Geoffrey,” Kate said, “what aren’t you telling me? This Argent was a real person.”
“No, I just told you…”
Real, and dangerous.
“Geoffrey,” Kate said in a warning tone. “You wouldn’t help me when I needed you. You owe me. Tell me the truth.”
Geoffrey seemed to wilt, looking down.
“Argent was a swordsman when I was young,” he said. “He wasn’t very good. Then he went away from the city. Not for long. Certainly not for long enough to be as good as he was when he came back. He defeated d’Aquisto and Newman one after the other in practice bouts! When people asked him how he did it, he talked about a fountain south of the city, and that’s all he would ever say about it.”
“You’re saying it’s real?” Kate asked. “You’re saying that I could – ”
“No, Kate,” the librarian insisted. “You couldn’t. Because you know what happened to Argent? He disappeared, right at the height of his talents. He fought everyone there was to fight, he wrote his book, and then he vanished. There are those who say that the Masked Goddess’s priests took him, but there are others… others who say that it was someone, something, else.”
Kate could feel the fear coming off Geoffrey then. He was serious about this, but that seriousness didn’t make her share his fear. Instead, it excited her, because it meant that it was real. This fountain might exist.
“Promise me, Kate,” he said. “Promise me that you won’t go to look for this. It’s dangerous.”
“I promise,” Kate said, raising her hand as if to swear an oath. At the same time, she found herself thinking about the map she’d seen in the book, trying to remember the details of it.
It seemed to be enough for Geoffrey. Kate heard him breathe a sigh of relief and he returned to his books while Kate contemplated her next move.
It was probably as well right then that she was the one who could read the librarian’s mind, and not the other way around. It meant he couldn’t see what Kate really intended.
It meant he couldn’t see the lie.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sophia returned to the palace, slipping in as quietly as possible, but unable to avoid the glances of some of the people there. She saw servants hurrying off at the sight of her, and wondered who they were rushing to tell. She saw Angelica looking down from a balcony, with an expression like thunder.
Something was happening, and people were moving too fast for Sophia to lock onto any one of them to find out what. She had vague impressions of violence and tension, of men preparing for conflict, yet why would Angelica be upset about that? It made no sense.
For a moment, the uncertainty of it all was almost enough to make Sophia turn around and head back into the city, because something had to be wrong, and right then, the only thing that Sophia could think of was that they might have found out about her. If they knew, she needed to run and run now.
If that were the case, though, wouldn’t Angelica look triumphant? Why wouldn’t she be there to gloat as she saw Sophia brought low? That thought was enough to make Sophia keep going, into the palace, looking for answers. Looking for Sebastian.
She didn’t have to look far to find him. He was waiting for her at the entrance to his rooms, looking surprisingly soldierly in a royal blue surcoat, a backsword hanging at his hip. He extended a gloved hand towards Sophia, and she took it.
“Sebastian? Is something happening?”
Sebastian nodded. “Lots of things. For a start, I have a day planned for us.”
He smiled as he said it, not saying more. In his thoughts, Sophia caught a jumble of things. There was… a boat?
There was indeed a boat. Sebastian walked with Sophia down to a small tributary of the river that ran through the city, surrounded by the palace grounds, with kingfishers flitting down into one of the rare clear patches of water in Ashton. There was a small boat there carved with dragons and gilded until it shone, with a quartet of blue liveried men sitting at the oars, and a couch on a small deck above.
Sebastian helped her to it, and the boat glided from its moorings with smooth strokes. On the grass of the riverbank, a pair of golden pheasants strutted, while Sophia thought that she could see deer in the distance.
“It’s beautiful here,” Sophia said. “More beautiful than the rest of the river.”
“We’re fairly high upstream,” Sebastian said. “Before the city has affected it too much.”
Sophia guessed that Ashton could take anything and make it into something ugly. It certainly did it with people often enough, hardening them into shapes willing to take anything from others. Somehow, though, in the middle of it all, Sebastian wasn’t the same. He was kind, and generous, and perfect.
They rowed down through the city to another stretch of greenery, where willows arched over the water, and a small jetty led to a garden filled with colorful blooms, which in turn attracted buzzing bees and brightly colored butterflies. There was also a blanket spread out, with a picnic laid upon it.
“You planned all this for me?” Sophia asked.
“All this and more,” Sebastian assured her. He gestured to a spot where an easel was set up just beyond the picnic blanket, and a woman in an artist’s smock sat by it, already working on the background of the garden scene.
“Who is that?” Sophia asked.
“That is Laurette van Klet,” Sebastian said. “She’s going to be a major artist, bigger than Hollenbroek, once the nobles around here see her work. I couldn’t think of anyone better to paint you.”
“To paint me?” Sophia said. Even the idea of it caught her a little by surprise. The idea that someone might want to paint her seemed like something unreal, something impossible. The paintings she’d seen in the palace had been of princes and kings, queens and noblewomen. There had been allegorical figures too, mythological scenes and women of the greatest beauty. There hadn’t been any orphans that Sophia could see.
“Do not let my presence distract you,” the woman said. “I have no use for the stuffy formality of others’ portraits. Continue as you were.”
It was a strange feeling, being ordered to enjoy herself the way a general might have ordered troops into battle. Even so, Sophia tried, lying on the picnic blanket while Sebastian moved in close beside her, offering her a quail’s egg.
It was so beautiful, lying there in the sun, nibbling at sweetmeats and pastries, kissing Sebastian, just enjoying this closed off space that it seemed the rest of the world could not touch. Sophia kept close to Sebastian, and it was easy to get lost in his presence, so that despite the artist a little way away, and despite the oarsmen who had brought them there, it felt to her as if they were alone in the world.
Then the rowers brought instruments from the boat and started to play, on harp and low flute, tambour and lute. The sheer incongruity of it made Sophia laugh.
“There!” Laurette called out. “I want to capture your face like that.”
To Sophia’s surprise, she didn’t ask Sophia to hold the posture though. She just put her fingertips to her temples, as though trying to drill the moment into her brain.
“It’s her gift,” Sebastian said. “She can remember a moment and paint it perfectly.”
“Why would you paint it any other way?” the artist asked, sounding surprised by the very idea.
Sophia could see her looking Sophia over, from the way she lay on her side to the way her dress had ridden up her calves just a little. By the standards of the stuffy portraits she’d seen in the palace, this one would probably be revolutionary, or at least shocking.
Sophia stayed there, and it was a strange feeling now, knowing that someone was watching every move she made. What would Sebastian’s mother make of the portrait? Would it make the dowager think that she was an even less likely match for her son than she must have after the dinner the other night?
“All of this,” Sophia said. “I get the feeling that you’re trying hard to impress me, Sebastian.”
“Shouldn’t I?” he countered. “I would give you the world if you let me.”
It was one of those things that sounded as though it was far too romantic to be true, but Sophia could see that Sebastian meant it, exactly as he said it. He would literally give her anything; wanted to give her everything.
He seemed to have started with the finest delicacies the palace’s kitchens could produce. There were slices of roasted venison on black bread, sweet tarts that contained berries from the palace gardens, topped with saffron that must have come in on a merchant ship. There was even a pie that held goose, duck, and quail, all layered within one another.
“All of this.” Sophia shook her head. “It’s enough that you’re here with me.” She was even more surprised to see that she meant it too. She’d come to the palace with the intention of securing a better life for herself, but right then she wouldn’t have minded being in a shack, so long as Sebastian was there with her. “You don’t have to go out of your way to do anything else.”
“That’s a sweet thing to say,” Sebastian said. “But I want everything to be perfect for you.”
It was perfect. Since she’d arrived at the palace, it had been as though she was walking in a dream, and not one of the dreams that plagued her at night, with half-remembered images of a house in flames, running through corridors with her sister. This had been, instead, the kind of dream that had seemed impossible in its beauty, offering things that Sophia had assumed would recede come daybreak.
Yet here she was, with a prince of the realm, eating the finest food, being serenaded by skilled musicians, having her portrait taken. If someone had told her that this would happen even a few short weeks ago, Sophia would have assumed that it was a joke, and a cruel one at that. She would have assumed that it was just a way to make her indenture worse with the promise that it might not come to that.
“Is something wrong?” Sebastian said, reaching out for her.
Sophia took his hands, kissing them both. “Just memories of the past.”
“I don’t want anything to be wrong today. I want at least one perfect day, before…”
Sophia cocked her head to one side. “Before what, Sebastian?”
She saw the answer to that before he said it, and she was already paling with the words she took from his mind when he told her.
“You’ve heard that the wars are getting worse?” Sebastian said. He shook his head. “What am I saying? You’ve seen for yourself how bad things have become, with all the different sides, the petty wars.”
“But they aren’t here,” Sophia pointed out. She wished that she could do more than that. She wished that she could make all the wars, the threats, and the worries go away for Sebastian.
“Not yet,” Sebastian said, “but the wars are like small streams flowing into a river, and that river is flowing toward us. When there were a dozen sides fighting one another, it was easy to ignore, and being an island helped for a while, but now, with everything here… there are those who think that we’re weak.”
“And so you’re going to show them that you aren’t,” Sophia said. “Hoping that they won’t strike back.”
There was more bitterness in that than she intended. She’d seen what violence could do firsthand, even if she hadn’t been in the war. More than that, she found herself worrying about Sebastian. She didn’t want to risk him being hurt.
“It’s something that’s necessary,” Sebastian said. “More importantly, it isn’t something I have a lot of choice about. Mother has decided that I need to look more like a real prince.”
Sophia would have laughed at that if it hadn’t been so serious. Sebastian was going off to war, where there were no guarantees of safety. Where anything could happen.
“More like Rupert, you mean? Trust me; compared to him, compared to anyone, you are the perfect prince.”
“I wish it were just you making the decision,” Sebastian said. “Then I could stay here with you. As it is, my mother says that I have to look like a prince to the Assembly of Nobles. That’s why I’ve been given a commission. I’m to be an officer in the royal house cavalry.”
“Endeavoring to be as dashing as possible?” Sophia asked, but even as she asked it, she could feel her heart falling.
More than that, she found herself feeling a building suspicion. There had been wars on the continent for as long as Sophia could remember, but it was only now that Sebastian’s mother was sending him to take part? Was it really about some build-up in the violence, or was the dowager just looking for a way to separate her son from the girl he’d just met? Sophia knew that Sebastian’s mother didn’t trust her.
Or maybe Rupert had done it. Perhaps the elder brother had whispered the right things in his mother’s ears about making a man of Sebastian, or the need to be seen to be doing well in the wars. Sophia had seen the jealousy when the two of them had been together. She’d also seen what he wanted from her. Was this just a way to isolate her?
Sophia didn’t want to think more about what it might mean. There was the risk to Sebastian, the danger that came with a war… but also the more practical problem that he wouldn’t be there. At best, she would be left in the palace waiting for him. At worst, they might ask her to leave the moment his protection was gone. They might cast her out in a way that would be a petty insult to a real noble, but which would be devastating to her.
“Don’t be afraid, Sophia,” Sebastian said. “I’m sure I won’t be in any danger, and I won’t let anything happen to you, either. That’s part of why I did all this. I want to make certain.”
Sophia frowned slightly. “Make certain of what?”
“That you’ll say yes.”
Sophia’s heart was in her mouth as Sebastian stood, returning to the space where their boat was moored. There was something in his hand, and when Sophia saw the jewelry box there, she barely dared to breathe. She could think of at least one thing Sebastian could do that would explain a lot of what was happening today. Something that would also do a lot to explain how furious Angelica had looked back at the palace.
When Sebastian fell to one knee, Sophia stood in surprise, but that only made it easy for him to take her hand, holding it in one of his while he opened the box he held.
The ring inside shone white gold, with diamonds that must have come from the other side of the world, and deep purple sapphires that were almost as rare. The band was a thing of intertwining strands, plaited into something delicate and elegant. It was the kind of ring that a master jeweler had probably worked for days over, and it had a sense of age to it that suggested it had probably been a royal heirloom since well before the civil wars.
“Sophia,” Sebastian said. “I had wanted to take my time before this, but the truth is that I already know what I want when it comes to you, and I… I want to do this before I have to go. I want you to be my wife.”
“You’re asking me to marry you?” Sophia asked.
Sebastian nodded.
There was only one answer to that. It overwhelmed any objection Sophia might have thought of, any concern she might have had about how other people might react. She pulled Sebastian up into her arms, holding him tightly as she kissed him.
“Yes, Sebastian! Yes, I’ll marry you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Kate almost hit her hand three times the next day, she was so distracted. She kept looking over to the spot where her stolen horse was tethered, happily chewing on grass and old oats. The first time it happened, Thomas laughed and told her to be careful. The second time, he frowned.
This time, he stopped in the middle of forging a set of horseshoes, letting the flames dull back down to an orange glow.
“No, don’t stop because of me,” Kate said. “If you stop working the metal, it will – ”
“I know what it will do,” Thomas said. “But I’d rather waste the effort than have you break all your knuckles swinging a hammer blind.”
Kate didn’t want that either, but she was willing to take the risk if the alternative was letting the smith down. She wasn’t going to ruin his work just because she was busy dreaming about fountains that could grant skill with a sword.
“What is it?” Thomas said. “Is Will out there to distract you?” He went over to the window. “The horse? Are you thinking of leaving us, Kate?”
There was a note of disappointment in that, and Kate could understand it. Thomas had given her so much, and here she was, not paying attention to the work that he had for her.
“It’s not that,” Kate said. “It’s just… you heard what happened at the training ground?”
She saw Thomas nod, and guessed that he’d had the details from Will. Either that, or one of the soldiers had spoken about it when they’d come to have a dent hammered out of a greave or a helmet.
“There’s a place where I could learn to fight,” she said.
“You’d ride off there and not come back?” Thomas asked.
“I’d come back,” Kate insisted. “I don’t want to stop being here.”
She was surprised to find that it was true. This was the first time that she’d had anything like a real home; the first time that she’d had people who seemed to care about her. Even Winifred seemed to in her way. It was just a way that was deeply worried for her son’s and her husband’s well-being. This was the first place where Kate had felt as though she was doing something useful.
Then there was Will. Kate wasn’t sure what there was with Will, not yet. She’d never had a chance to see boys as anything except bullies and threats, yet now here one was and she liked him. She liked him a lot.
“Then it sounds as though you should go,” Thomas said. “Before your distraction means that you hurt yourself.”
“But – ” Kate began. She’d been intending to finish the work for the day, at least.
Thomas shook his head. “I’ll get by without an apprentice for another day. Or two, if you need it. Go on with you. I’ll try to salvage these horseshoes.”
Kate didn’t need a second invitation. She hurried out to the horse she’d stolen, looking around until she found the tack for it and then starting to fasten it all in place. She was halfway through it when she saw Will coming out of the house.
“Kate? You’re not going, are you?”
He sounded worried that she might be, maybe worried that she would want to leave after what had happened with his regiment.
“I’m not leaving forever,” Kate said, and smiled at the thought that it was the kind of thing a boy might say when he was going off to war. “It’s just… there are things I need to do. I need to get stronger.”
“Why?” Will asked. “You’re safe here. I could protect you.”
Kate shook her head. That wasn’t good enough. She didn’t just want to be safe when Will was around to protect her. She didn’t want to have to rely on someone else to stay safe, even him. She wanted to be strong in her own right, and now there was a way.
“I could come with you,” Will suggested.
“I think I need to do this alone,” Kate said, because anything else would have meant explaining exactly what she intended. Even after everything Geoffrey had said, she still had a hard time believing that there might be a magic fountain that could make her unbeatable. Trying to explain that to Will would be even worse.
“At least try to be safe?” Will said, moving to stand close to her. Close enough that for a moment, Kate thought that he was going to kiss her. He didn’t, though, and Kate found herself feeling a hint of disappointment at that.
Maybe when she got back.
“I will,” Kate said. “And I’ll be back soon, you’ll see.”
She would be. With the strength she got from the fountain, she would be able to do all the things she’d wanted.
***
The ride to the forest took longer than Kate expected. Her horse was strong and fast, but Kate wasn’t enough of a rider to send it to the south at a full gallop. Instead, she rode at a steady pace, sticking to the broad, paved roads at the start, then pulling off onto dirt tracks as the trees came into view.
She tried to remember the map from the book. The spot marked on it had been specific, but she hadn’t seen the map for long. There had been something about way markers, and a staircase. Kate just hoped that they would be obvious.
They were. She found the first of them before she reached the forest. It was a block of stone, designs on it worn almost smooth by time and weather. Kate’s fingers traced a design that could have been a fountain, or could have been the maw of some great beast. There was an arrow cut into the stone, pointing to a smaller track. Kate took it.
Slowly, the foliage started to surround Kate, pressing in until she had to dismount and lead the horse. She didn’t want to leave it, but the trail was getting narrow enough that she might have to if things kept going like this.
She caught a flash of worked stone by the trail, and it was such a contrast to the tangled branches that pulled at her that she stopped, looking at it more closely. Kate brushed away a tangle of ivy with her foot, and saw that beneath it there was the stone block of a step. Another stood above it, and another, in a set of stone steps that had been all but lost to time and moss.
Kate tied her horse off now, taking a knife from her saddlebags and the wooden sword that she’d made as a way to practice designing blades. She used the wooden blade to clear away some of the tangled foliage ahead of her, cutting with the knife whenever she needed a sharp edge.
Her hacking revealed more stone in the form of another way marker, this one almost as tall as she was. It had carved symbols on it, in the lines and swirls of a language that had nothing to do with the kingdom’s. There was something else too: an image of a fountain.
Kate’s breath caught at that, and she hurried up the rest of the steps, daring to hope that this might all be real. She’d been sure that this was all some story, and then that she wouldn’t be able to find the fountain even if it did exist. Now, it seemed as though it might just be a short way away.
Kate’s feet slipped and stumbled as she climbed the stone steps, moss giving way underneath her, while brambles that seemed solid as she grasped them proved to be anything but. She ended up leaning on her practice blade the way someone else might have used a walking stick, using it to test the ground ahead of her while she clambered up the crumbling steps. Each one seemed designed to challenge her as she made her way forward.
“I hope the fountain is worth it,” Kate said as she climbed.
Although it wasn’t that far, the climb was difficult enough that it took her long minutes to reach the top. When she did, there was another short path through even denser trees, which seemed to block out the light, turning the world into something strange and unknown. They tangled together to form a kind of leafy arch, and Kate stepped through it, into an open space on the other side.
There were no trees here, just more of the ancient stone she’d clambered up to get here. It stood in the ruins of something that seemed far older, with fragments of wall there sticking out of the turf like teeth, and broken columns seeming like fingers reaching up through the grass. All of them were the dilapidated relics of some far earlier time, before the civil wars, maybe before even the kingdom.
The fountain stood at the heart of it, and one glance at it made Kate’s heart fall.
In another time, it might have been impressive. It was broad and dark, cut from local stone so finely that it seemed to be a natural extrusion from the landscape rather than a man-made structure. It was a broad shell shape, curling up with a statue standing at the center that might have been a woman once, but was now so covered in moss that it was hard to tell.
The fountain wasn’t flowing anymore.
That fact, more that the rest of it, told Kate just how useless her journey now was. Crumbling stonework wasn’t promising, but ultimately, it meant nothing. She’d come for a fountain, though. She’d assumed that there might be something special about the water there, something magical. Now that there was no water, it felt as though she’d let herself get carried away by what Geoffrey had told her. It felt stupid, to spend her time here rather than at the forge, crafting the sword that was currently only wooden.
Kate sat back against the fountain, closing her eyes to push back tears. She’d been so stupid to come here. Stupid to think that she could ever be as strong as the boys from Will’s regiment. It had been an empty dream.
“Why would a fountain make someone strong?” Kate demanded of the forest around her.
“Fountains can’t,” a woman’s voice said. “But if people are looking for a fountain, it makes it easier for me to find them.”
Kate’s eyes snapped open, and she stood, holding her wooden practice sword out in front of her. A woman stood there, wearing a hooded robe of deep, forest green. She had dark hair that appeared to be tangled with ivy, and eyes of a leaf green that seemed to match the plants around her. She was older than Kate, perhaps thirty, but with a look to her that said she might be even older than that.
“I’ve been threatened with many things before,” the woman said. She pushed aside Kate’s practice blade gently. “Never with a stick.”
“I – ” Kate lowered the weapon. “I’m sorry, you caught me by surprise.”
“But you came to this place,” she said. “You came looking for help, or you would not be here.”
“I just didn’t expect…” Kate began. She realized that she must sound like an idiot. “Who are you?”
Instinctively, Kate reached out to read the other woman’s mind, but all that met her was something that felt as solid as a wall. Her attempt to get through just slid off it, and Kate stared at the other woman in shock.
“I am someone who is not so easily read by a gift such as yours,” she replied, although she didn’t seem angry at the intrusion. If anything, she seemed happy about it, which was the one reaction Kate hadn’t expected. “And now you are wondering if we are the same. We are not the same, girl. Mine is a much darker version of your powers. And much more twisted. One you should beware to pry too deeply into.”
Kate suddenly felt a flash of this woman’s mind, as if sent to her, and she involuntarily raised her hands to her ears and shrieked. It was so dark, so awful, a blur of horrific images, all moving too fast to make out, but leaving an impression of incredible horror.
Finally, it stopped.
Kate removed her hands from her ears, breathing hard, staring wide-eyed. Never in her life had someone invaded her mind like that. She had all this time assumed she was impervious. That no one else’s mind was more powerful than hers.
She looked this woman – if that’s what she was – up and down with a new fear, and a new respect. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come here after all.
The woman grinned in return, an ugly, invasive grin.
“Who are you?” Kate asked again.
The woman was silent for a long time. Finally, she spoke.
“Some call me Siobhan,” she said. “But names are merely labels for the weak. You have come here for a reason. Ask for what it is you want, and I will tell you the price.”
Kate blinked.
“I don’t understand,” Kate said.
The woman frowned, and Kate could guess at the disapproval there.
“Don’t waste my time, girl. You came here for a reason. You were looking for something. What is it?”
Kate swallowed, but refused to allow herself to be cowed by Siobhan’s tone. She would be strong.
“I want to be able to fight,” she said. “I want to have enough power that I’m never helpless again.”
The other woman stood there in silence for a few heartbeats. Kate could feel each one thudding against the inside of her chest. What would she do when the other woman said no? What would she do when Siobhan told her that it was impossible, and Kate was wasting her time?
“You have a talent, and I could teach you to build on it. I could teach you to fight in ways that have nothing to do with the crude strength of men. I could teach you to harness powers beyond anything you’ve seen.”
She made it sound so simple, when her whole life, Kate had been told that there were some things that were too evil even to talk about. There was a reason Kate and Sophia had hidden what they could do.
“You wouldn’t have to be afraid of what you are any longer,” Siobhan said. “You could be strong. You could be free. My kind can help yours, if you let us.”
A part of Kate wanted to say yes, but she knew better than to do that. People were rarely so generous.
“And what would you want?” Kate asked.
Siobhan seemed pleased. “In return, two things.”
“Two things?” Kate retorted.
“You ask a great deal of me,” the woman replied. “Two things does not seem unreasonable.”
She made it sound almost playful, as though the whole thing was a game. There was something about the laugh that followed that almost didn’t seem human. It seemed as though the forest itself was laughing.
“What things?” Kate asked, in spite of it.
“Apprentice to me and learn all I wish to teach you.”
