Seraphina: A Novel Part 31

"I know." He took my hand, squeezed it. "I can't bear that you'll be alone."

"Not alone. There are others of my kind. I'm going to find them."

"Who will kiss you? Who will rock you to sleep?" His voice was slow, drowsy.

"You never did," I said, trying to tease him. "You were more father to me than my father, but you never did that."

"Someone should. Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not."

"Hush. You're talking nonsense now."

"Not nonsense. This is important!" He struggled to sit up straighter and failed. "Your mother once told me something, and I need to tell you ... because you need ... to understand it ..."

His eyes fluttered shut, and he was quiet so long I thought he had fallen asleep, but then he said, in a voice so soft I could barely hear: "Love is not a disease."

I leaned my forehead on his shoulder, all the words I'd never spoken to him rus.h.i.+ng my throat at once, forming a terrible lump there. Hesitantly he stroked my hair.

"I'm not completely certain she was right," he murmured. "But I cannot let them cut you out of me, nor her either. I will cling to my sickness ... if it is a sickness ... I will hold it close to me like the ... the sun, and the ..."

He faded away again, this time for good. I sat with my arms around him until Eskar returned. I smoothed his hair off his forehead and kissed him lightly. Eskar stared. "Take good care of him, or I'll ... I'll bite you!" I told her. She looked unconcerned.

The sky outside was blue, cold, and very far away; the sun was too bright to look at, let alone hold close to me. "But I will try, uncle," I murmured, "though it burns me. I will keep it close."

I hurried homeward through the slushy streets. I had a prince to find.

When I reached the palace, there was a great crush of carriages at the gates. The city magistrates, the bishop, the Chapter, the guild leaders, the Queen's Guard-every important person in the city had arrived at once. Indoors, I was carried toward the great hall by a crowd of people, more than would comfortably fit inside, it turned out. Half of us were diverted back out to Stone Court.

Apparently the council had been short. We were about to hear the official results.

A balcony halfway up the wall was opened up to both the hall and the courtyard, such that someone with a loud voice could be heard in both places. Glisselda appeared there, waving to the roaring throng. She acted on her grandmother's behalf, but everyone who saw her that day, clad in white for her mother, her golden hair s.h.i.+ning like any crown, knew they were in the presence of the next Queen. She awed us into silence.

She handed a folded letter to a herald, a particularly vociferous fellow, whose voice rang out clearly over the hushed crowd.

Generals of the Tanamoot: Goredd rejects the legitimacy of your claim to sovereignty over the Dragon Lands. Ardmagar Comonot yet lives; petty threats will not induce us to turn him over, nor do we recognize the validity of these trumped-up charges against him. He is our proven friend and ally, author and champion of the peace, and the legitimate ruler of the Tanamoot.

If you push this toward war, do not foolishly imagine we are helpless, or that your own people will choose to fight for you rather than for continued cooperation between our species. This peace has been a true blessing upon the world, which is changed for the better; you cannot drag it back into the past.

Devoutly hoping we may settle this with words, I am,

Her Highness Princess Glisselda, First Heir of Goredd,

On behalf of Her Majesty Queen Lavonda the Magnificent

We applauded with heavy hearts, knowing that this was all the pretext the generals would need for war. Another conflict was coming, whether we willed it or not. I saw smirks on faces in the crowd and feared that some among us willed it in fact.

It took forever for the crowd to disperse; everyone wanted a chance to pet.i.tion the princess or the Ardmagar, swear loyalty, argue. The palace guard managed the crowds as best they could, but I did not see Kiggs anywhere. It wasn't like him not to be right in the thick of things.

Princess Glisselda had also contrived to disappear. I suspected Kiggs might be with her. There were two places outside the royal wing where someone like me could look. I had just set foot upon the grand stair, however, when a voice behind me stopped me short: "Tell me it isn't true, Seraphina. Tell me they're lying about you."

I looked back. The Earl of Apsig crossed the atrium toward me, his boots echoing upon the marble floor. I didn't ask what he meant. Ninys and Samsam had spread the news to every corner of the court. I gripped the bal.u.s.trade tightly, bracing myself. "It's no lie," I said. "I am half dragon-like Lars."

He neither flinched nor rushed up to hit me-as I'd half feared he would. His face went slack with despair; he flopped himself onto the broad stone steps and sat with his head in his hands. For a moment I considered sitting beside him-he looked so sad!-but he was too unpredictable.

"What are we to do?" he said at last, throwing up his hands and looking up with red-rimmed eyes. "They've won. Nowhere is exclusively human; no side in this conflict is ours alone. They infiltrate everything, control everything! I joined the Sons of St. Ogdo because they seemed to be the only people willing to take action, the only ones looking the treaty in the eye and calling it what it was: our ruin."

He ran his hands through his hair, as if he might pull it out by the roots. "But who connected me with the Sons and urged me to get involved? That dragon, Lady Corongi."

"They're not all out to get us," I said softly.

"No? How about the one that tricked your father, or the one that deceived my mother and made her bear a b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

I drew a sharp breath, and he glowered at me. "My mother raised Lars as if he were my equal. One day he began sprouting scales out of his very flesh. He was only seven; he showed us all, innocently rolled up his sleeve-" His voice broke; he coughed. "My father stabbed her right through the neck. It was his right, his injured honor. He might have killed Lars, too."

He stared at the air as if disinclined to speak further. "You didn't let him," I prompted. "You persuaded him otherwise."

He looked at me as if I were speaking Mootya. "Persuaded? No. I killed the old man. Pushed him off the round tower." He smiled mirthlessly at my shock. "We live in the remotest highlands. This sort of thing happens all the time. I took my great-grandmother's family name to avoid awkward questions if I went to court in Blystane. Highland genealogies are complex; none of the coastal Samsamese keep track of them."

So that's what he was: not a dragon, but a parricide who'd changed his name. "What about Lars?"

"I told him I would kill him if I saw him again, and then I set him loose in the hills. I had no idea where he went until he popped up here, an avenging ghost sent to haunt me."

He glared at me sullenly, hating me for knowing too much, never mind that he himself had told me. I cleared my throat. "What will you do now?"

He rose, straightened the hem of his black doublet, and gave mocking courtesy. "I am returning to Samsam. I will make the Regent see sense."

His tone chilled me. "What kind of sense?"

"The only kind there is. The kind that puts humans first over animals."

With those words he stalked away across the atrium. He seemed to take all the air with him when he left.

I found Glisselda in Millie's room, weeping, her head in her hands. Millie, who was rubbing the princess's shoulders, looked alarmed that I had entered without knocking. "The princess is tired," said Millie, stepping toward me anxiously.

"It's all right," said Glisselda, wiping her eyes. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her blotchy pink cheeks made her look very young. She tried to smile. "I am always pleased to see you, Phina."

My heart constricted at the sight of her sorrow. She'd just lost her mother and had the weight of an entire realm thrust onto her shoulders, and I was a bad friend. I couldn't ask after Kiggs; I didn't know why it had ever seemed like a good idea.

"How are you holding up?" I said, taking a seat across from her.

She looked at her hands. "Well enough in public. I was just taking a little time to ... to let myself be a daughter. We have to sit vigil with St. Eustace tonight, the eyes of the world upon us, and we thought a quiet, dignified sorrow would be most fitting. That means taking some time to bawl like a baby now."

I thought she was referring to herself in the plural, as was her royal right, but she continued, "You should have seen us drafting that letter after council. I would weep, and Lucian would try to console me, which started him weeping and made me sob the more. I sent him to his beastly tower, told him to get it all out."

"He's lucky to have you looking out for him," I said, and meant it, however torn up I felt.

"The reverse is true," she said, her voice breaking. "But it is nearly sunset, and he has not yet come down." Her face crumpled; Millie hastened to her side and put an arm around her. "Would you go fetch him, Phina? I would take it as a great kindness."

It was a rotten time for my lying skills to fail me, but too many contradictory feelings crowded in on me at once. If I was kind to her for selfish reasons, was that worse than being virtuously unhelpful? Was there no course I could take that would not leave me wracked with guilt?

Glisselda noticed my hesitation. "I know he's been a bit cantankerous since learning you were half dragon," she said, leaning in toward me. "You understand, surely, that he might find it difficult to adjust to the idea."

"I think no less of him for it," I said.

"And I ... I think no less of you," said Glisselda firmly. She rose; I rose with her, thinking she intended to dismiss me. She raised her arms a little and then dropped them-a false start-but then she steeled herself to it and embraced me. I hugged her back, unable to stop my own tears or to identify their source as relief or regret.

She let me go and stood with her chin raised. "It wasn't so difficult to accept," she said stoutly. "It was simply a matter of will."

Her protest was too vehement, but I recognized her good intention and believed utterly in her steely will. She said, "I shall scold Lucian if he is ever less than courteous to you, Seraphina. You let me know!"

I nodded, my heart breaking a little, and departed for the East Tower.

At first I wasn't sure he was there. The tower door was unlocked, so I rushed up the stairs with my heart in my throat only to find the top room empty. Well, not entirely-it was full of books, pens, palimpsests, geodes and lenses, antique caskets, drawings. The Queen had her study; this was Prince Lucian's, charmingly untidy, everything in use. I hadn't appreciated the surroundings when we'd been up here with Lady Corongi. Now, all I saw were more things to love about him, and it made me sad.

The wind ran an icy finger up my neck; the door to the outer walkway was open a crack. I took a deep breath, willed down my vertigo, and opened the door.

He leaned upon the parapet, staring out over the sunset city. The wind tousled his hair; the edge of his cloak danced. I gingerly stepped out to him, picking my way around patches of ice, pulling my cloak tight around me for courage and for warmth.

He looked back at me, his dark eyes distant though not exactly unwelcoming. I stammered out my message: "Glisselda sent me to remind you, um, that everyone will be sitting with St. Eustace for her mother as soon as the sun goes down, and she, uh ..."

"I haven't forgotten." He looked away. "The sun is not yet set, Seraphina. Would you stand with me awhile?"

I stepped to the parapet and watched the shadows lengthen in the mountains. Whatever resolve I might have had was setting with that sun. Maybe it was just as well. Kiggs would go down to his cousin; I would go traveling in search of the rest of my kind. Everything would be as it should be, on the surface at least, every untidy and inconvenient part of myself tucked away where no one would see it.

Saints' bones. I was done living like that.

"The truth of me is out," I said, my words crystallizing into cloud upon the icy air.

"All of it?" he said. He spoke less sharply than when he was truly interrogating me, but I could tell a lot was hinging on my answer.

"All the important parts, yes," I said firmly. "Maybe not all the eccentric details. Ask, and I will answer. What do you want to know?"

"Everything." He had been leaning on his elbows, but he pushed back now and gripped the bal.u.s.trade with both hands. "It's always this way with me: if it can be known, I want to know it."

I did not know where to begin, so I just started talking. I told him about collapsing under visions, about building the garden, and about my mother's memories falling all around me like snow. I told him how I'd recognized Orma as a dragon, how the scales had erupted forth out of my skin, how it felt to believe myself utterly disgusting, and how lying became an unbearable burden.

It felt good to talk. The words rushed out of me so forcefully that I fancied myself a jug being poured out. I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured.

I glanced at Kiggs; his eyes had not glazed over yet, but I grew suddenly self-conscious about how long I'd been talking. "I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but there are things about myself I can't even fathom yet."

" 'The world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and G.o.ds,' " he quoted. "I'm beginning to understand why you like Necans."

I met his gaze, and there was warmth and sympathy in his eyes. I was forgiven. No, better: understood. The wind rushed between us, blowing his hair about. Finally I managed to stammer, "There is one more ... one true thing I want you to know, and I ... I love you."

He looked at me intently but did not speak.

"I'm so sorry," I said, despairing. "Everything I do is wrong. You're in mourning; Glisselda needs you; you only just learned I'm half monster-"

"No part of you is monster," he said vehemently.

It took me a moment to find my voice again. "I wanted you to know. I wanted to go on from here with a clean conscience, knowing that I told you the truth at the last. I hope that may be worth something in your eyes."

He looked up at the reddening sky and said with a self-deprecating laugh, "You put me to shame, Seraphina. Your bravery always has."

"It's not bravery; it's bullheaded b.u.mbling."

He shook his head, staring off into the middle distance. "I know courage when I see it, and when I lack it."

"You're too hard on yourself."

"I'm a b.a.s.t.a.r.d; it's what we do," he said, smiling bitterly. "You, of all people, understand the burden of having to prove that you are good enough to exist, that you are worth all the grief your mother caused everyone. b.a.s.t.a.r.d equals monster in our hearts' respective lexicons; that's why you always had such insight into it."

He rubbed his hands together against the cold. "Are you willing to hear another self-pitying 'I was a sad, sad b.a.s.t.a.r.d child' story?"

"I'm happy to hear it; I've probably lived it."

"Not this story," he said, picking at a patch of lichen on the bal.u.s.trade. "When my parents drowned and I first came here, I was angry. I did play the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, behaving as badly as such a young boy could contrive to behave. I lied, stole, picked fights with the page boys, embarra.s.sed my grandmother every chance I got. I kept this up for years until she sent for Uncle Rufus-"

"Rest he on Heaven's hearthstone," we said together, and Kiggs smiled ruefully.

"She brought him all the way back from Samsam, thinking he'd have a firm enough hand to keep me in line. He did, although it was months before I would submit. There was an emptiness in me I did not understand. He saw it, and he named it for me. 'You're like your uncle, lad,' he said. 'The world is not enough for us without real work to do. The Saints mean to put you to some purpose. Pray, walk with an open heart, and you will hear the call. You will see your task s.h.i.+ning before you, like a star.'

"So I prayed to St. Clare, but I took it a step further: I made her a promise. If she showed me the way, I would speak nothing but the truth from that day forward."

"St. Masha and St. Daan!" I blurted out. "I mean, that explains a lot."

He smiled, almost imperceptibly. "St. Clare saved me, and she bound my hands. But I'm skipping ahead. Uncle Rufus attended a wedding when I was nine years old, to provide a royal presence. I went with him. It was the first time they'd trusted me out of the castle walls in years, and I was anxious to show I could handle it."

"My father's wedding, where I sang," I said, my voice unexpectedly hoa.r.s.e. "You told me. I do vaguely remember seeing the pair of you."

"It was a beautiful song," he said. "I've never forgotten. It still gives me chills to hear it."

I stared at his silhouette against the rusty sky, dumbfounded that this song of my mother's should be a favorite of his. It glorified romantic recklessness; it was everything he scorned to be or do. I could not stop myself. I began to sing, and he joined in: Blessed is he who pa.s.ses, love, Beneath your window's eye And does not sigh.

Gone my heart and gone my soul, Look on me love, look down Before I die.

One glimpse, my royal pearl, one smile Sufficient to sustain me, Grant me this, Or take my life and make it yours: I'd fight a hundred thousand wars For just one kiss.